School Melo-drama ~ Deadwood Dan

It has been performance time for the past two week-ends for Spencer's play: Deadwood Dan. Spencer is the hero and title character.



He works out his troubles with his sidekick, Bill, and in the end, he gets the beautiful, if not melodious, girl.



At intermission, Spence had an air piano performance that was pretty funny, too. I'll see if I can get that video to load tonight....

General Conference, Again!

What can I say? We love to go to Conference. Yes, it is a long way, but we love to be with our kids, we love singing on a street corner for tickets, and we really love how tickets just pour out upon us. In fact, a young woman came up to us this time to see if we had more than enough tickets yet. She said that she was told we always get more than we need!

Of course, going to conference usually involves getting at least one hotel room, which never has enough seating...

And of course, October conference is a tremendous time to celebrate Dana's birthday!

And going out to dinner before (or as in this case, after) the priesthood session of conference.

This time it was Applebee's, and it was great!

But not as great as the Sunday morning session. The best we could do with our tickets was to try to all be together on the terrace level, but as we walked to our seats, an usher invited us to just keep on walking all the way down to the main floor. We ended up off to the side, 15 rows back. I'll tell you one thing for sure: the singing sounds a whole lot different down on the main floor than it does in the back of the balcony.

The best feeling in the world is having your family around you, excited for the beginning of a session of conference. We missed our loved ones who were in Texas (Jon and Meli) or under the weather (Brian and Dana felt poorly). And we even missed our adopted daughter, Melanie Merrill, especially when singing for tickets!

Mission Reunion... 30 Year Later

So this is my first mission reunion. Don't know why I didn't try to go earlier, but I can tell you briefly (honest) why I went this time. Elder Boyd Peterson had found everybody from our LTM group, except me. But on a recent trip to Seattle, he stopped in, with his recently returned missionary daughter, to visit her former mission president. Turns out that was my brother-in-law Dean and his wife Patrice. They put two and two together and came up with... me!

The super-sleuth Petersons, with one of their other daughters.

Elder Baxter and I served together in Rhodesia, before it became Zimbabwe. I reminded them that at a very difficult time in our lives, they committed an act of caring and kindness that made a huge difference to us. Wonderful, wonderful to catch up with good people!

I was Elder Steglich's last companion. He reminded me that I owe him Salt Lake City's largest pizza because the woman you see him happily with is not the one I predicted he would marry. After spending a lovely evening with them both, I would say that it will be a pizza well owed!

This was my wife's first opportunity to meet a General Authority, Elder Golden. She had previously asked her sister Patrice, she of the recently completed mission presidency, if it wasn't intimidating meeting General Authorities? Patrice's advice: take every opportunity you can to associate with them. They are not intimidating; quite the opposite. They radiate the pure love of Him whom they serve. We had to agree after our experience with Elder and Sister Golden.

I Thought Watchdogs Were Overkill!

Never had one of these try to scare me away at the gate. What part of "civilization" don't my precious children understand?!?!?!?

Celebrating a Friend's Birthday... in Black!

So it was Jim Field's birthday last month. His 50th. Which meant his wife got to plan this really cute party where all of his friends come tease him for being over the hill. Which we did!

Here's the offending spouse, cutting the evidence. I was spared a similar fate only because my 50th birthday immediately preceeded our string of 3 weddings one after the other. Julie just didn't have it in her to plan one more party.

Here's the joyful celebrant. Jim has filled his 50 years with tons of scouting, faithfulness and good works. Not bad for a man in black.