Easter

How was your Easter? I spent part of mine in the Emergency Room of our hospital. (Lacey told me to look like I was in pain, but the pain wasn't really bad).

See the blood? I punctured my arm with a very sharp carving knife while helping with Easter dinner. It was in the drain board, sharp side up and I wasn't careful.... That is what I get for helping. Lacey drove me to the hospital and Page cleaned up the big mess. It hit an artery and the blood went everywhere in the kitchen. I'm sure glad they were around to help.

Despite the drama, we had a very nice ham dinner for Easter.

The Easter Bunny left a basket and gifts for Lacey. Page and I were thrilled to have Lacey attend our Ward for Easter Sunday with us. Lacey and Page got to hear me sing in the Ward Choir too. I really love singing for Easter.

We hope you all had a wonderful Easter

An Apostle's Easter Thoughts on Christ

One of the great consolations of this Easter season is that because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so.

Birthday Dinner

Today was my 47th birthday. First nice thing I did for myself is I took the day off from work. At 5 p.m. when Page got home from her job, Page, Lacey and I took off for Billings to have some Chicago style deep dish pizza. So we hopped in the car and headed north.

We got the "Magnificant 7"with sausage, pepperoni, olives, peppers, red onions, tomatoes and mozarella....

Page and Me

After dinner

We are feeling good

When we got home, I had a slice of Page's homemade Banana Cream Pie. MY FAVORITE!!! Just throw a dolop of whipped cream on that baby, and I am good to go.

I had a great Birthday.

It's Good to be Irish

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day in style today. For dinner, I made a loaf of soda bread, a pot of corned beef and cabbage along with carrots and potatoes. After dinner, Page, Lacey and I sat down and watched "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" . We also heard from our laddie, Sean, by email in Argentina today. He is doing well and is very happy. You can read all about how he is doing on his blog. Our blessings definetely outnumber the shamrocks in the fields.....

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Elders Over for Dinner

Elder Jensen, Elder Cook, Elder Hernandez and Elder Bautista

We had the Missionaries over for dinner on Tuesday night. We made a dinner of steak, baked potato, salad and rolls. We also made sauted mushrooms for the steak, mmmmmmm. We would have also had apple pie and ice cream, but I burnt the pie. Yep, I was so busy reading Sean's email from Argentina, I lost track of time. So Page saved the day with a chocolate cake from the market.

Here is a picture of the Elders getting ready to sing to us after the meal. Now that is truly "singing for your supper!". It is nice to have them in our home. I think of Sean and how the members in Buenos Aires are feeding him too and making him feel welcomed.

Elder Jensen is the zone leader and works in Cody. He is from the San Diego, CA area. Elder Cook is a missionary in our ward and is from Mesa, AZ. Elder Hernandez is from Guatamala and is working in Cody, and Elder Bautista is in our ward and from Aculpulco, Mexico. Elder Bautista came to this mission the same time Sean got to Argentina and he hasn't been transfered yet.

Valentine Activities

I had a busy weekend. At work on Friday the 13th, I hosted the clinic's 3rd Annual "Death by Chocolate". The staff makes chocolate desserts and we have a panel of judges vote the top 3 for prizes. The last two years I have placed 3rd both times. This year I fell short, and I thought I had my best dishes ever. Yes, dishes, I made two dishes. One was a classic "Texas Sheet Cake" and then I tried a new recipe, "Chocolate "Berried Treasure" Bars. They were good but not good enough, obviously. The winner was a peanut butter/chocolate cookie. A cookie beat me out!

Saturday morning on Valentine's Day, Page and I had a nice breakfast down at Pepes. They have the best breakfasts in town, in my opinion. It was nice to go out to breakfast with my sweetheart. The rest of the day we were busy preparing for a Ward Activity. We are in charge of activies/socials at church. Saturday night we planned an Adult's only party. We had people bring either desserts or appetizers. We provided the punch, and we had dancing, party games and karaoki. Let's just say I had no idea how many wannabe singers we had a church. It was a lot of fun.

Sunday was our day of rest. We were tired and sore from all that dancing. I hope you all had a nice Valentine's Day too.

Eagle Soaring

Page, Lacey and I spent the day in Billings on Saturday. On our way to the big city, we saw a beautiful Bald Eagle flying up above the road near Bridger, Montana. It was a beautiful, warm, clear day and the view of this majestic bird was awe inspiring. We also saw some beautiful hawks hunting mice in the fields. I guess we were not the only ones taking advantage of the sunshine.

Roddick knocks out Djokovic

Great match last night between Roddick and Djokovic. THe #9 player beat the #3 player in the world. Way to go Andy Roddick. The Australian Open is going on right now. This win pushes Andy to the semi-finals against Roger Federrer. That is going to be a tough match. It got to 133 degrees on the court yesterday. Andy was winning the match, but Djok quit in the 4th set due to the heat. Andy looks good this year. He has lost 15 pounds this year and in great shape. I hope he can upset Roger. I am very happy for Andy.

Let it snow

We had a nice snow fall Saturday evening and night and woke up to a blanket of white

of course, we had to go to church so I had to get into my winter clothes and go out and shovel the porch, walkway, driveway, and side walks. It doesn't help that we live on a corner so I have sidewalks on two sides of the house, plus a little sidewalk along the back. And to add to my fun, I decided to shovel the neighbor's driveway and stairs to her front door. I know, I am a good boy scout!


Look, and I am still smiling after all that work

Utah Getaway

This past weekend, Page and I took a few days off to getaway and spend time together. We chose Utah. It is close and has fun things to do. And a chance to do some shopping in the big city. On Sunday morning we went to Salt Lake City and heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir during their weekly live broadcast from Temple Square in the Tabernacle. We go to sit way down front. Afterwards we saw the Joseph Smith movie in the Visitor Center and the beautiful Christus statue.

Here we are in Temple Square with a view of the Salt Lake Temple.

We also stopped by to see a few of Sean's BYU friends. They let us film them talking to Sean. We sent the tape along with some messages from Page, Lacey, the Ludwigs and me. We also sent some Valentine goodies to Sean today in the mail.

Here is a picture of Sean's friends in their apartment at BYU

Back- L to R: Emily, Kitty, Natalie, Alex

Front- Page

We also had lunch one day at Tango House in Provo. It is an Argentine restuarant. We had empanadas, milanesa and gnocci. And to top it off we had flan covered with Dulce de Leche.

Here is Page with the owner of the restuarant, Andrea and her daughter Antonella. They are from Buenos Aires, Argentina. They moved to the USA when Antonella was 11. They first lived in California then moved to Utah. They were so nice and of course we told them all about Sean and they talked about Argentina. They are going back for a visit in March and offered to take anything to Sean we wanted to send him. Isn't that cool? We only met for a few minutes, but we could tell they are great people.

Our trip was a lot of fun. We had fun talking and hanging out together. I have to admit I pooped out more than Page did. By 5 p.m. everyday, I wanted to take a nap. We got to see our friends the Ludwigs, although not for very long, but they all seem to be doing very well. I finally got to eat at Cafe del Rio. For the past 5 years I have been wanting to go and every time we are in Utah we never make the time to do it. Well, finally Page and I went. I had the pork burrito and it was AWESOME. I will go back there again sometime.

We made it home safely and both of us went to work today, but we are already thinking about when we can get away together again.

I love this picture

Here is a picture of Sean with Elder Sabey (who also was in his BYU ward last year and lived down the hall in his dorm). Elder Sabey isn't his companion but they are in the same zone (Catan). They are at the mission Christmas Party in Haedo, Buenos Aires, Argentina the week before Christmas. The missionaries had a white elephant gift exchange and Sean got a pair of women's sunglasses and he wore them all day.

Doesn't he look great and happy!?! And look at his hair! I can't believe he has a part in it now. Click on the picture to enlarge it so you can get a good look at him....

Crowned

I finally got a crown on my tooth this afternoon. I broke off a piece of a tooth last April when Page and I were driving to Utah to pick up Sean from BYU. I remember the incident well, I was in biting into an egg mcmuffin in Lander when I thought I was chewing on some hard grisle only to discover half my tooth broke off in a couple of pieces. After that my toungue kept getting cut and I still had to get to Utah, pick up Sean then drive down to California so Sean could go through the LA Temple. When I got back, I couldn't find a dentist available to fix it. I finally got established wiht a dentist in October and now this has been the earliest I could get into to get a crown.

Anyway, I am numb, sore and tired. So much so, that I don't have any desire to watch the rest of the BCS Championship game between Florida and Oklahoma. The best team (USC) got jipped anyway......

USC and Black-eyed Peas

USC 38 Penn State 24

Rose Bowl Champions: USC TROJANS

Another exciting Rose Bowl game today. The USC Trojans proved they are one of the best teams in the country. First time in history that one team won three consecutive Rose Bowl games. 7th straight BCS bowl game, 7th straight Pac-10 championship. Our QB, Mark Sanchez broke the all time completion record in a Rose Bowl game today. It was a wonderful game

For the 46th consecutive year, I had a bowl of black-eyed peas. Nobody in my family really appreciates this tradition the way I do. Growing up, my family had black-eyed peas every New Years Day since I was a baby. Now that I have my own family, it is basically me cooking black-eyed peas and everyone grumbling, so I doubt this family tradition will go beyond this link of the family tree, but as long as I draw breath, I will have my black-eyed peas on New Years Day for good luck. (My mother also called to make sure I had my black-eyed peas today)

We started out the day at the stroke of midnight with a treat. Powell is celebrating it's 100th birthday in 2009 and they started it off with a huge fireworks show. It lasted 20 minutes and we could see it right from our front window. I thought that was fantastic and it put a smile on my face.

Happy New Year !!!

South America in Snow

Lacey was parked out in front of our house for Christmas and the snow on the back of her window looked exactly like South America. I swear I can see where Sean lives in Argentina.

I thought it was pretty awesome. Lacey quickly took this photo before it dissappeared.

Christmas Day

We started out with a nice breakfast of cinnamon rolls, eggs and sausage. Lacey tried to wake us up early to open presents but we fought it until 8:30 a.m.

I got a few USC things today. Here is a fleece blanket from Page. We all got some nice presents, but the best of all was 40 minutes with Sean. He called us about 12:30 p.m. It was great to hear his voice and learn more about his area. He went to eat at a members house last week because the family is moving back to Peru. He said they first had some chicken, then the Dad brought out OCTOPUS!!! He said it didn't even really looked cooked. At first he was shaking his head no when offered the delight. He ended up trying it and said it was real rubbery. I guess I hogged most of the telephone time, I didn't realize I was doing it. At one point Sean had to say "let Mom ask a question". After the call, I missed him even more. It took awhile to shake off the feeling that we can't speak to him again until Mother's Day. It was also nice to find out they have air conditioning in the apartment since it's started to get real hot in Argentina. He sounded like he was doing well and a few times was using Spanish words instead of English, and when he would catch himself we would all laugh. What a special experience to talk to him.


We ended up invited a couple of the missionaries over for Christmas Dinner since nobody signed them up. One of the Elders, Elder Morris, went to BYU with Sean and they were in the same ward. We met Elder Rougeau for the first time tonight. He is from Utah but his family came from Lousiana. We have a feeling he is related to our dear friends, Frank and Lynn Rougeau from Lousiana. We will have to find out.

Here we are at the end of the day in front of our Christmas Tree. After the Elders left Lacey and I went to see the movie, Bedtime Stories, that just came out today. It is a great movie. You should go see it.

And here we had to take a picture of Elder Taylor Morris before he left the house.

¡FELIZ NAVIDAD!

Christmas Eve in Cody

Lacey wants to know what will happen if she sticks her tongue on this pole when it is freezing outside.....

Lacey and Page after our Christmas Eve dinner in Cody


Every Christmas Eve since we left California we have gone out for a special dinner as a family. Tonight we ate at the Rib and Chop House in Cody. Here is a picture of us outside the Rib and Chop after we had nice steak and chicken dinners. Then we headed back home to wrap up the day and get ready for Christmas.




It will be nice to have Lacey spend the night and spend the day with us tomorrow. Also the big phone call from Argentina by Elder Sean... how great is that going to be!!!!!!


Merry Christmas

O' Christmas Tree

We found this ornament of the sun that is on the Argentina flag. We added it to our tree this year in honor of Sean serving his mission in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Only three more days until Christmas, and that means a phone call from Sean. Missionaries can only call home twice a year: Christmas and Mother's Day. This will be the first time we get to talk to him since he has been in Argentina. Lacey will be coming over to share Christmas Day with us too. It's going to be a great Christmas for us this year. We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas too.

More Elf Mischief !!

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Christmas Elves

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Coach Pete Carroll

Watch CBS Videos Online

USC's coach, Pete Carroll, was on 60 minutes tonight. Not only is he a great coach, the winningest coach in college football, but he also has helped lower gang violence in LA. We are lucky to have him. Fight On!