Dad waxing on about good/evil

Well - am I going to be the last person in August to write the Bawb? I think according to Blaine's game, I should get some kind of prize or something. Maybe just the warm feeling of knowing that I contributed is the big prize! I hope that i don't win because I'd love to hear from others of you! in August.

Blaine,
I haven't commented on your Calculus letter. Partly because I wanted to expand and massage it in my head first. I agree so much with the concept that it doesn't matter where you are in the scale - if you're pointed down or pointed up is what's important. I liked the Calculus principle as well (and yes Wendy you are part of this family - mainly because you made this family!) The concept of whether something is good or bad, isn't the same for everyone. It kind of depends on where you are, and which direction does it take you. For example these are questions people ask me - Am I going to 'heck' if I drink caffeinated drinks? Is watching TV on Sunday evil? Is eating coffee flavored ice cream bad? Is it bad if you change into grubbies on Sunday. If you don't join the choir are you a bad person? Is it wrong to kiss on the first date?

I think the answer to all of these is - it depends...where does it lead? If that first date kiss leads to greater love which leads to marriage that leads to raising a righteous generation, then boy yes, that kiss was great! But if it leads to an unrestricted passion which leads to immoral behavior which leads to pregnancy which leads to abortion which leads to suicide, then it was a terrible thing. So to know if something is good or bad, you have to almost see the future - and you must also see the past. You must see the whole picture and what you become because of the choice. Of course Christ makes it possible to change direction. That's why we love him. He has power to turn all bad into good. Time then is a critical part of understanding good and evil.

But that's not what I came to talk about... I came to talk about what is real? It's a topic that has been pressing itself on me a lot lately.

But since I've already blathered on enough...I'll close this blog up and come back with my write up on reality... Maybe I'll not only get the last person to write in August, but perhaps I'll also be the first to write in September!!

Loves to all,
Dad

Magic Words

After months of coaxing today Bentley has finally spoken the magic word "mamamamamama!" and also "nananana" (which we are going to pretend means Gwen, it probably does for that matter). I beam with pride each time he says it and so does he, he knows it makes me happy. It is fun having two kids and seeing how they are different. By Gwen's first birthday I think she was speaking in full sentences and if not that she at least knew more than 10 words. Bentley has been satisfied to just grunt "dadada" and it is just as cute as all of the things Gwen did. They are so different and I just want to burst with the love I have for each of them!

Gwen's Message

About a month ago Gwen left a message on our machine that I loved. Of course it is better hearing her actually say it, but it goes something like this:

Gwen: "It's a message."
Blaine: (Who is in the background) "Yes, leave a message."
Gwen: (In a very confident and big girl voice) "Ummmm - hello. I hope I come to your house again. I love you."
Blaine: "Who are you talking to?"
Gwen: "I'm talking to Max."
Blaine: "Who else?"
Gwen: "Rosey and grandma and grandpa. . ."
Blaine: "And who else"
Gwen: and Jaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnneeeeeeey
Blaine: "Grandma had a birthday"
Gwen: "I love you grandma."
Blaine: "Anything else?"
Gwen: "I love you grandpa."
Blaine "Anything else?"
Gwen: "Byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeee"

Thanks Gwen - I love and miss you!!

Summer Summary

Hello Happy Family!
Life is so crazy, and it moves so fast...yet it is so wonderful! I have enjoyed my summer so much, I love my job (and not just because a cute boy works there either:) I love being able to just spend time talking with Mom, Dad, Janey, and Max. I love going to lots of family get togethers, I love going to our wonderful ward, I love having delicious meals cooked every night, I love having my laundry and ironing done for free...and the list goes on! I really have just enjoyed this summer so much, and yet I am so excited to go back to school and make lots of friends and fun memories, as well as learn lots and lots. I just love life...
Ok so you may all be wondering why I am so stinking optamistic right now...Well the rumors are true, I held Jeffrey's hand (and despite the awkwardness I enjoyed it very much!:) I don't know I just feel so grateful to the Lord for all the blessings I am receiving in my life right now. So I will give a quick summary of our little "relationship" (no we are not official). I have known Jeff since the very end of April. I can remember the first day we worked together, I can remember where we were and what we talked about...but I won't get into those mushy details. I guess my point is that he has always intrigued me. I just love teasing him and talking with him, but I really was not in love with him for a long time. Then he took me on a date to the Zoo, and I realized that we had lots of fun with just us two. For our second date he took me to the days of 47 rodeo and dinner, our 3rd date we went golfing, 4th date I took him to the play "PIRATES" with all the Bassett family, and then our 5th date he took me to a cool pottery place where you glaze your own potts, and then to dinner at Olive Garden and then we hiked Ensign Peak at like 10:30 PM (We are young so that is legal...)It was on our way up Ensign that I think we both really wanted to hold hands, of course it was awkward but he finally got the guts when I pretended to trip...he just snatched my hand right up and didn't let go. It was really awkward at first because he grabbed it like a mother would grab a childs hand, luckily we quickly criss crossed...I learned something about myself that night, when I start feeling awkward I just start talking and talking and talking...oh well it made it less awkward. Anyways that it is the lowdown for me and Jeff right now, I really like him but I have no idea what is going to happen because my last day of work on Temple Square was on Friday (which is super super sad). I will be interested to see what happens but we have talked like we plan to see eachother a lot.
Anyways that is the most exciting thing that has happened to me this summer. Kristi I am sorry I did not give you a personal phone call. I got home late that night and then I left for Provo soon after I got home from work the next day...if it makes you feel any better Mom didn't hear it from my mouth either. However I am still sorry and I will have you on top of the list of people to tell for the big kiss (if it ever happens!) I am glad he is a slow mover though...that is how I like it. Anyways enough rambling. I am so grateful for the fun summer I have had (thanks to our wonderful family) and I am excited to go back to school. I love you all...
Love, Rosey

Waxing philosophical about calculus and life's little victories

First of all, dad, great letter! I'm sorry that everybody's leaving you; unfortunately the reasons are more complicated and hard to remedy than any odor you may give off for lack of bathing :-) At least look on the bright side--you've still got it way better than us. You have everyone in the immediate family still in the same state as you, within a few hours drive (besides us of course). Probably like many things in life (and I know we've discussed this idea before), you feel more emotion attached to change than to the status quo. The derivative rather than the function, if you follow me. For example, we have been seeing a steady decline in the price of gas here and recently were ecstatic to find that some gas stations had dipped into the sub $3.50 range. I commented to Kristi what a different feeling it was to see $3.49 on the marquee this time around as compared to when we saw $3.49 on the way up a few months ago. It's obviously the change, the direction, that things are going that seems to matter more than where they really are. $3.49/gallon can be good or bad--what matters is if prices are rising or falling. Likewise with you and with us. For us to have any member of the immediate family move within 350 miles of us (the distance St. George is from you) would be wonderfully exciting because we've got nobody. For you to lose kids even to Provo one by one is probably devastating--all because for us the "price" would be falling, for you it's rising. Anyway, not to belabor this point too much but I can imagine the sadness you are probably going through. Even though your "price" is still much better than ours, yours is rising and ours stays the same so good luck to all of you as you spread out and go through that change!

(Of course, to be complete I also need to tie this into the obvious gospel application--the idea that we are all in different places but it doesn't really matter where any of us are so much as where we're heading. That's why we can't judge others. Only Heavenly Father knows enough about all our circumstances to properly decouple our intent from our situation. To take the "derivative of the function" our cumulative life has carved out. At the risk of really killing the accessibility of my point with a calculus example, you can imagine the graph of y=x (a diagonal line) or y = x + 100 (the same diagonal line that is shifted up 100 units higher). The derivative of both of these is precisely the same (dy/dx = 1) because they are both climbing at the same rate. The 100 units makes absolutely no difference. The same goes for us--wherever we are, however "righteous" or "unrighteous" we're never so good that we can't quickly get into trouble and we're never so bad that there's not a chance for us. The key is to always keep aiming the right direction...)

Anyway, the next thing I have to say is: Rosey. What the heck?

You held hands with Jeff and didn't bother to even write about it in the BAWB yet (let alone call us at 12:30 in the morning to tell us the exciting news)?? We are insulted and expect full details very soon! (Ok, and congrats by the way!! :-)

As for our life, things are going good. The direction seems to be going good which is the important thing. Things are tough at work but a little less challenging than a few months ago, so that's good. We miss everybody and need a vacation but labor day and my trip to Utah are getting closer so that's good. We have lots of things that we need/want that we can't afford but we're getting close to the time of the year where bonuses and hopefully a raise will be coming, so that's good. The pregnancy is still hard, the prospect of a new baby still frightening, but we're getting a handle on it and Kris even inherited a boatload of cute new maternity clothes so that's good. The kids are growing up too fast but they're getting cuter and sweeter and funnier and easier and more helpful every day so that's great. Really, when you look at most things in our life, we may not be where we want to be, but the "derivative" looks good, so we're happy. We seem to be on our way. We hope that the same thing can be said about all of you in most aspects of your lives!

To be more specific about a few things that have happened lately--things that I have been meaning to write about but just haven't taken the time...

When we got home from Utah our lawn hadn't been cut for over a month and was a disaster. Our neighbor had been very vigilant in watering it and with our sprinkler system being a little zealous anyway (usually it waters it a lot more than you really tell it to), we had a nightmare on our hands. So I took a page from Dad and Max's playbook and headed over to Home Depot for a new Honda mower. It cost about 4x more than the cheap Walmart model I had previously had but I had high hopes that it would at least get the job done (plus the Walmart one had seemed to break right before we went to Utah). Well let me say our lawn has challenged even the best. Even the Honda couldn't go more than a few feet with out choking out until I set it to cut on the very highest setting. I did that and then let the grass grow for another week. Then I tried to lower it to a middle setting and it died on me about 100 times but I eventually got the whole lawn down to a more reasonable length. Finally, yesterday I got it down to a lower setting that I like for the long term and I cut the whole lawn without it dying at all. Of course, a lot of the lawn had actually died because the mulched clippings from the previous weeks had laid so thick that they like blocked out all the sun and actually killed some sections of the yard. So this time I also had to try to pick up the clippings (we don't have a rake but they are only really bad in a few areas) and I'm hoping that from here out I can keep things under control. Victory #1.

As many of you may or may not know, our little Bentley has been crawling around for a few weeks now and lately he has really gotten the hang of it and can move quite quickly, pull himself up onto things somewhat, and just generally sniff out mischief as boys his age do. Since most of his crawling is done upstairs, we needed to install a little baby gate and we wanted one of the nicer ones that actually attaches to the wall and locks shut (as opposed to the friction ones that everyone hates that wedge in a door frame without actually being connected to it). The top of our stairs was very much unlike the admittedly wide array of installation situations that the gate's designers had planned for so I found myself (to Kristi's extreme nervousness) having to improvise a little bit. It took about a week (three or four different sittings trying to figure out how I could do this) to get it installed the first time. It wasn't particularly elegant, but it worked. Until it broke a few days later. I spent an hour of precious after-work time to fix it (it had come out of what I thought was a stud but was apparently just drywall) and it seemed solid again. Next day, Kris was a saint to invite all of Gwen's friends over to give some of the moms a break and just let the kids have fun and in the midst of all the fun the gate got pulled out again. 2 more hours that night and I pulled out all the stops. Turns out that there was a stud behind one of the hinges but I guess I wasn't in there deep enough to reach it. The other one I had to drill a hole the size of a silver dollar (practically) in the wall to fit in a really good anchor but I got it done and it looks nice. It's been several days now, it is holding solid, and I expect (and pray) for it to continue this way permanently. Victory #2.

From the time we've moved in, our garage has been full of boxes. We've done multiple passes over the year we've lived here to simplify and throw things out and dump old stuff off to others with garage sales and craigslist. But we've never quite gotten it under control. Partly because it's so stinking hot to ever be out there and there is so much disagreement between us about what is junk and what is worth keeping. (Yeah, I plead guilty. I'm the packrat.) So during my week here alone while Kris was still in Utah with the kids, I made it my goal to get the garage cleaned. I didn't really get around to even looking at it until the Saturday morning and when I did, I had a revelation--that we couldn't ever clean it because there simply was too much stuff and nowhere to put it. The solution wasn't to throw more away, it was to use the space more efficiently! With this revelation I was immediately on my way to Home Depot (you'll notice that a subtitle to this post could be Blaine and The Home Depot Chronicles). I bought about $100 worth of tools (finally got me a circular saw) and lumber with the intent to make shelves. To be clear, what I knew I didn't want was a weenie shelf like the one we already had in there. I didn't need shelves that attached to the wall (drywall of all things--we know how that always goes). I wanted sturdy shelves from the ground up and I thought it would be fun and cheaper to make them myself. Well it turned out to be a lot more work than I thought. I spent the entire Saturday and managed to create two shelves and also make the garage a lot bigger mess than it already was (clutter + sawdust = an even more cluttered feel, it turns out). To imagine what these looked like imagine a long skinny table with crooked legs that looks a lot like, pick one: the bed I made for the Rose Palace, the half pipe we made at Scotts, the Borg hut that went behind our house, or even the drop-down reading assistant I made that Kris still gets a kick out of. Well, Kris got home Monday and let's just say it wasn't the great surprise that I had hoped to deliver. Anyway, many long nights and weekends and a full Saturday later, I finished the shelves, swept out the garage, and proved that with a little place to put things we could have a garage that felt large and orderly, that could comfortably park a car (I decided it wasn't worth it to try to park both cars--we'd rather have the extra space...), and that would not require me to throw out precious artifacts of my youth (the manifestation of my carpentry skills perhaps now being one of the most priceless examples of which... :-) Victory #3.

So life has been full of little victories for me. I won't go into detail about the defeats because, really, who cares about those. (And because, really really, you'll notice that most of my defeats are folded into my victories--that's what makes them victories...).

But I've droned on long enough. It has been nice to have a couple extra hours today since we only had sacrament meeting. Our ward was cut in half and so they only had Sacrament meeting today while they are hashing out and recovering from the reorganization. There was about 100 callings made in church today. Pretty much every organization got reworked from top to bottom. Incidentally, our callings have thus far not been affected. Kris will continue as a Mia Maid advisor (although now there is only one Mia Maid left) and I continue as the co-organist and 2nd Sunday Elders Quorum teacher. I'll be surprised if this status quo remains for a really long time but I won't complain since I'm really comfortable and enjoying both of these callings.

The kids are growing like weeds. I'm excited to see most of ya'll in a few weeks when I come for my recruiting trip. We're still waiting for more people to book our couches/inflatable mattresses for upcoming trips to Texas ;-) Love and miss you all!

Hi Ya'll,

It's so scary around here. People are dropping like flies. First it was Blaine leaving to go back to Austin. Then it was Kristi and the babes. The Nick and Stef decided they had had enough, and they moved to St. George. Rosey is moving down to Provo tomorrow, and Janey moves down next week. Ugh! What's up? Did we forget to bathe or what? Only Max and Caroline are left (we count her as one of our own since she and Max are such good pals). I tease mom that now that there are more boys in the house than girls, that we are going to be majority, and we're going to demand for some changes. But after the tease, I recognize that really, the main change we're going to see is that we're going to need to be more supportive than perhaps we've been. We've been spoiled with all this feminine support around the house, and now we are going to have to step it up! We're going to miss you girls....!

Well as long as everyone writes every week (or at least once a month) to the Bawb, then I'll try to stop whining.

Thanks to Jane for her great letter. To Blaine's comment that she should be rolling in dough...she is now the proud owner of the Blue Hyundai. She doesn't have much cash, as she worked hard all year putting most all her earnings into her car. But she is now an owner! She doesn't owe anybody anything. She's not even taking anything out of her accounts to cover her school (at least not yet). So my congratulations! Kudo's to Janey. Also, while I'm bragging on Janey she will surely be missed as PRimary Chorister. Mom says everyweek how loved she is by those kids.

Well, I hope all of you saw the pictures. Rosey held Jeff's hand on her date last week. I don't know if it's as big of news in Jeff's house as it is in ours, but we feel like we're ready to welcome him into the family. Kudo's to Rosey as she got a nice scholarship for school and already has a job lined up working at the bookstore again.

This week was Bobby and Ashleigh's wedding reception in Rexburg. We got up at 4:45am and took off at 5:30 to drive up for the wedding at 11:00. It started a little late because some of Bobby's Nash cousin's got stuck in traffic and then got a traffic ticket. And so we waited for them. But it was a beautiful day. After pictures outside the temple we went to Aunt Alda's place and was amazed at how beautiful she keeps that huge yard - and she does it herself. Nick and Max rode boats on the pond, Max and Janey jumped on the tramp, Nick and Stef walked by the river and saw some snakes. I visited with Alda and Mae. And then it was time to go to the reception. After saying 'howdy' to all, and getting some of their great treats, we hit the road and drove home. At 11:45pm we arrived home and fell right asleep. Wendy said she was more tired after all that sitting, than she was after hiking King's peak.

Well - we hope you are all taking pictures and putting them on your web album.

We love you and look forward to hearing from you in the Bawb.

Loves Dad

We must have skipped a month

School has come waaaaay too fast. I swear I woke up this morning and we basically skipped a month. I know I should be excited for school...but I really am not. I am really hoping that by not being excited it will be better than expected.
So, I finally have housing. It was a very dramatic event, but I hope it will all work out. I went down to Provo about two weeks ago to start looking, and found that pretty much everything is full (understandable because I did wait until the last second). As I was driving home and feeling rather discouraged, I decided that I didn't want to risk living with random crazy people, so I thought it could work to live with Rosey at the Glennwood. The reason I didn't sign up when Rosey signed up was because 1) It is a six person apt. which I have never done 2) The ward is a little bit younger 3) It is a little farther from campus. I figured I would be brave and go live on my own. As I drove home I decided it would be fun to live with Rose and all her buddies. The rest of the week I wrapped my mind around the idea and started getting really excited. The next Monday I went down to sign a contract and see if I could get in with Rosey and they said NO! I was so upset, I even cried all night long. I decided the next day during my lunch break I would go down again and talk to someone else. This time there wasn't even any contracts available. WHAT!?! I couldn't believe it! I went back to work and the girl I was working with knew a girl that was trying to sell her contract and was going to live on the floor above Rosey. So, I will live really close to Rose, but will still be living with people I don't know. At least Rose will live close and might have a 7th roommate. :) okay Rose?
Work has been super busy. Last week was randomly one of the busiest (sp?) weeks ever. Not only at work but every night I had something. They were fun things like a date where I learned how to golf and play "Rock Band." I went to a play and stared at Rosey and Jeff's hands to see if they were going to hold hands (of course they didn't though). The play was really funny and it was fun to drive home with just Dad and have some good one-on-one time. I went to a reception and then went and hung out with some old friends. Work is crazy because I am training people...not my favorite thing to do. I hope I can be patient with my kids and not just do everything for them. It is hard teach these girls how to do stuff and just sit and watch them and think I could do it faster. Patience!!!
I love living at home and will really miss it. I love and appreciate it all....laundry, having a yummy meal waiting at home, having my own queen size bed, and people who love me, and not having homework when I get home. I love my calling as primary chorister and don't know if I am ready to go back to ward where everyone is the same age. The kids sometimes make me crazy, but I love them so much. So, I am very grateful for the past year I have had to live at home.
Blaine and Kris, I know we have all been a little relaxed in writing to the blog and keeping in touch with you, but know that we will have the family in 4 different places, I think this will be my life line and hope to do much better at writing.
Love you all so much. Props to Dad for working so dang hard at work it hurts; props to Stef for making it through the living heck week of moving and then having all your stuff everywhere and a sick baby and still coming to the Winder Jamborall; props to Kris for taking care of two kids and being sick all at the same time; props to Nick, Mom, and Max for backpacking Kings peak and sleeping two nights on the ground; props to Blaine for being a supportive husband and a good hard worker; and props to Rose for dating Jeff :) and going on a school event camping trip in Jackson Hole and sleeping with a bunch of girls you don't know. You are all amazing and I look up to each of you so much!
Love, Janey

August Cartoons - enjoy

Well we just read Blaine and Kris's blog stuff and felt bad that you guys had to ask if we were gone already. We are kinda out of the communication loop right now because of moving. Right now we are in the in-betweener-weener stage. We are out of our apartment, which thanks to Mom, Max and Caroluewy (sp?) looks better than when we moved in. Here's to hoping for a full deposit refund !$! We started seriously packing less than a week before we had to be out. Normally that wouldn't matter, but with a little baby and Nick gone all day at work and school all day, that was a huge stressor. Nick really wanted to go on the big backpacking trip to Kings Peak. Of course the timing was awful. As you can all imagine I told him I didn't want him to go, but it was up to him. So we packed up early, moved out early and came and dumped all our stuff on my parent's living room floor and then Nick was off. I am glad he had fun, but it was too stressful on me. I didn't accomplish much since little Bret got sick, wasn't sleeping, had his first throw up fest, and our car battery died. Our stuff is still all over my parent's house. They are the nicest people in the world...Needless to say, it was an emotional week.

We finally found a place in St. George. We will take off on Friday and Nick starts work on Monday. Basically we will be in a time share condo overlooking a golf course. We have a pool and tennis courts, its fully furnished, and SUPER expensive. It should be tons of fun though and hopefully the stress will subside as we get settled in. Uncle B and Aunt Nance are so nice to let us live at their place for the few weeks in December. We are anxious to see how Nick likes IHC Finance.

Bret is growing like a weed. He sure is fun and cute.

We are also super glad that Nick is done with school. He has been really busy and deserves a fun break! Well, we love and miss everyone! Talk to you soon. Kris, glad you are doing pretty well and glad you guys are are getting more excited! I revere mothers of anything more than 1!

love, Stef

St. George

So did Nick and Stef get moved to St. George and everything??

Announcing

Announcing the long awaited arrival of.....Bentley's first tooth! We thought perhaps he would never get any, but today I stuck my finger in his mouth and got chomped on! It is a lower tooth and is sharp as a razor. Anyway, congratulations to Bentley.

In other news, Gwen is such a good swimmer! She swims totally vertical with just her little face poking out of the water and it is so funny but she can tread water for a few moments by herself. It is really funny to watch, we need to get video.

Bentley has the cutest little wave. He waves goodbye to Blaine when Blaine leaves for work each day, it's so dang cute! We are working on blowing kisses and stuff like that too, but he mostly likes to wave.

All of Gwen's friends are starting school this fall and if not kindergarten (which is all day, really all day from 745 to 245) then preschool several days a week. Gwen is on the waiting list at several preschools, it is such a joke. I have been working on this project since February!

I am feeling better for the most part, I still have some "moments" but I can't complain, and the other day I even felt excited about the baby. I know that probably sounds weird but that emotion hasn't been one I've really felt yet about this baby, but I got a twinge of excitement when I was wondering what the baby would look like. We are excited for this little guy/girl to come. I think we are going to find out what the gender is, but I think we are going to keep it a secret from everyone until the baby is born! Ha ha! Do you like that idea? Heaven knows we better find out because it takes us a couple of months to come up with names!

Well, those are just a few tidbits. Talk to you later!

Take home window

I think it should be the new tradition. Instead of "take home window," see who can be the first to post in each new calendar month. And, well, anyway, for this month, on my little game, I WIN!! :)

Thanks for all the good blogging in July. It's a great way to feel connected to ya'll from way out here! Here's to a great August...