Thatcher Eagles 42 -- Morenci Wildcats 6

Jacob's pick-six to end the game -- the last touchdown scored by the Thatcher Eagles in their regular season. Playoffs coming up next on Friday vs. St. Johns at St. Johns.

Eagle Football -- The Season Begins

You can sense it from the lengthening shadows leaning northward to the shortening of the days and the moderating of the temperatures -- fall is in the air. And so are the footballs.

Jacob's Thatcher Eagles took the field for the first time this season last night -- even though it was only a scrimmage against Tombstone Yellow Jackets. Here are some pictorial highlights...

No score was kept, but the coaches seemed satisfied with the effort. The season begins in earnest next Friday night with the first game. Not sure of the opponent.

This is Jacob's last hurrah on the gridiron so he's hoping to make the most of it. He should see more playing time on offense and defense. It's anyone's guess how the team will do this year.

Here I am, in all my backside glory. Spencer shot this image at our recent Hansen Family Reunion on Mt. Graham. You can see the camp kitchen you all gave me for Christmas. It was great fun to use, very easy to set up, very efficient, and carried a great deal of the the "Wow" factor for those who were at the family reunion. It solidified my reputation as a "serious camper." Thank you all again, for the great gift.

The family reunion was a lot of fun but also a lot of work. I was in charge of providing the camp location and set up and for some of the activities. Everything went off without a hitch except for some rain we received Wednesday (before the event actually began) that soaked a lot of our sleeping bags and tents.

The actual reunion ran Thursday through Saturday. I went up on Tuesday to lay claim to a camping site. Mom and I had taken a scouting trip up the mountain a couple of weeks earlier and decided that Snow Flat was the best place. It is a three or four-acre meadow near the top of Mt. Graham with a small pond at the lower end. There was a large group already there when I arrived Tuesday afternoon, so I went around a bit of a hill toward the lower end of the meadow and set up the camp in a lovely spot under a canopy of Ponderosa pines and douglas fir trees.

I was there alone Tuesday evening and night and used the time to set up a couple of tents, the kitchen area and arrange the campfire area.

In the morning I finished with the set up and then went back down the mountain to pick up Jan and the rented Port-o-Potties and do the shopping for the food items that needed to be on ice. It rained on the mountain before we were able to return and I had not put the rain flys on the tents, thus the soaked sleeping gear.

Spencer and Anna arrived Wednesday night so it was just the four of us for dinner and evening campfire. That was nice. On Thursday other family members starting arriving. The list of attendees...

Grandma and Grandpa Hansen

Kathy Johnson

Susan Abbott

Christie, Russ and Christian Frandsen

Mark Hansen

Julie and Lizzy Early

Joseph Abbott and his triplets

Spencer and Anna

And Sally

Thursday was mostly gathering and talking. We had a good dinner of your Mom's famous Mexican food. She is quite a fantastic Mexican food chef.

Friday we toured the telescopes which was fun and impressive to the visitors. Saturday there was a shooting range -- Joseph Abbott and I were the range masters -- and a t-shirt painting workshop taught by Lizzy Early. Both were a lot of fun.

Then as rain was threatening again, we packed up our stuff and drove the winding road back to Thatcher. Julie and Lizzy stayed with us in Thatcher Saturday night and then drove back to Phoenix Sunday morning to catch a flight back to Portland.

I think everyone who attended the reunion had fun. The weather was perfect. There were no mosquitos, only a skunk that took a liking to my kitchen area. He/she visited us just about every night.

Mt. Graham is really quite a great place to get away from the desert's summer heat. Within forty-five minutes one can be in an alpine setting amidst firs, pines and aspen.

Mom is now in Utah visiting her mother and sisters -- and Whitney's family, I think. She has been quite the traveler this summer with trips to Washington earlier this year, Iowa and now Utah. I've been "stuck" here in Thatcher for the duration, but I don't mind. I miss Mom when she's gone, however.

I registered for the Tour de Tucson this past week to ride with Spencer, Anna and a few members of Anna's family. It sounds like we will have quite a group. That puts added pressure on me to do well so I've stepped up my training rides. I rode more than 400 miles in July--a pace I will need to maintain to get in the shape I want.

Jacob made it through football camp and now gets into regular two-a-day practices until school begins. Sally seems to be adjusting slowly to her new situation.

Life moves on.

Love.

Dad

You probably recognize the picture as the spines on a saguaro cactus. These particular spine clusters are found on the saguaro in the front of our house.

I like "pattern pictures" and seem to take a lot of them. I think I may start getting enlargements of some of them printed for framing and displaying in my "office" (read spare bedroom) here at home.

We've been enjoying some delicious moments of monsoon type rain the last few days and some increased humidity. Of course, we don't get Iowa-type humidity of 99 or 100 percent like I've seen on recent Iowa City weather reports. Percentages in the 40s and 50s are typical for summer monsoon days here in the desert -- maybe sometimes in heavy rain conditions getting up to the 60s and 70s. But then it dries out again when the storm passes and then builds up for the next afternoon's showers.

My grass, as Whitney and her kids can attest, turned out nicely. It seems to be growing way too fast, however, which might be the result of the fertilizer I used when I planted. I've had to mow it every second or third day. I believe I will cut back on the sprinkling schedule to see if I can slow it down a bit. But it's thick and green and a joy to walk and play on. The local wildlife seem also to like it -- rabbits, quail families, other birds and our ever-present desert chipmunks.

I've just finished an audio series of Hugh Nibley talks entitled "Time Vindicates the Prophets." It is available through the BYU bookstore. I highly recommend it. I have been listening on my iPod as I travel for my work and also as I ride my bicycle. It is a series of talks given by Nibley in the late 50s (I think) that were broadcast on Sunday evenings on KSL radio. There are, perhaps, 20 or so talks, each about 15 minutes long. He touches on various aspects of religious and philosophical history as it relates to the early Christian church, later evolutions of the church influenced by philosophy and how those developments compare with the restored gospel and latter-day prophets. They are worth the time to listen. Nibley is amazing in the depth and breadth of his knowledge of early history and philosophy.

We so enjoyed having Whitney, Ethan, Jackson and especially Sophie here with us for a week. We hope they had fun and found the trip worth the time and effort. Mom can never get enough of her grandkids of course and is now planning a trip to Iowa to visit Erin. That will complete her trifecta of visiting Rachel earlier this year, having Whitney here in Thatcher this past week and then going to Iowa to visit the three Tingey grandkids. She's a great Nana, don't you all think?

I've been enjoying getting back into the biking habit. I made a few changes to my bike this season which has made it quite a bit more comfortable for me. I've suffered from various kinds of neck and wrist pain the past and the slightly different riding position I now have is helping to minimize that.

This is a beautiful time of year here in the Gila Valley. The lush green cotton fields, the white billowy summer clouds in the blue sky and the afternoon thunderstorms dancing around Mt. Graham compensate for the warmer (hotter) days and evenings. Mornings are still cool, however.

Keep yourselves safe and well.

Love,

Dad

Looking east.

Looking south.

Looking south.

Looking southwest.

The view from the dining room window.

It's Saturday evening and Mom is faithfully doing her Relief Society duty and fixing/serving dinner to the folks taking part in the regional single adult conference. Mom is a hard worker and a faithful person. We would all be better people if we followed her example more closely.

You can see above the results of our new lawn project. Jake provided much (but not all) of the labor and I provided the consulting services of design, sprinklers, equipment operation and seed selection.

The seed seemed to take a long time to sprout but I think I have come to the conclusion that I planted a week or two early and the bermuda grass seed I selected would have liked slightly warmer nights. But now it's beginning to grow more quickly and fill in nicely.

I ordered a state-of-the art lawn mower that is among the most pollution-free and energy saving models -- mostly because it has no engine. Just a good ol' fashioned push reel mower. I'm sure that thrills Jake's heart. It will certainly be good for mine.

It should be here within the next four or five days. I may need to mow it before then, however, which means borrowing a neighbor's. We left our Fruit Heights mower behind when we moved thinking that we would have no grass in Arizona. But we soon realized that grandkids needed a place to roll around on (besides the piles of sand and gravel). And it also provides a bit of an oasis in the desert. We can't afford a swimming pool so this is our green, organic "pool" to cool us off in the heat of the summer.

Jake seems to be having a good experience in Utah although I hear precious little from or about him -- just a bit here and there that Jan learns from her Mom and relatives in Mapleton. I understand Jake is hiking this weekend at the exact same spot where Mom did her solo experience during her wilderness survival hike before we were married. That seems fitting -- completing the circle from mother to youngest son. I don't know whether Jake realizes the significance of the place.

Life is chugging along fairly well right now for Mom and I. I am just "waking up" from my annual bicycle hibernation and getting back into regular morning rides. My bike season is getting a late start this year mostly because of the labor (and exercise) I was putting into the new lawn project. Now that that's behind us (mostly) the bike is back in the picture.

I replaced several parts on my Waterford trying to make it a bit more comfortable for this aging body of mine. So far it seems to be working except for the new saddle. I installed a leather Brooks saddle made in merry old England. It is supposed to be the most comfortable bike saddle made -- except for the first five or six hours of break-in time. In short, my butt hurts like heck. I'm not sure if it's the saddle I must break in or my back parts. It seems like the latter right now. Gratefully, I have been noticing some improvement in comfort this last little while.

We have been enjoying unseasonably cool weather. It's mid-June and, save a couple of hot days in May, haven't had any extreme temperatures yet. Days are in the mid-9os, humidity very low and nights in the low 60s with only slight amounts of wind for a couple of hours in the afternoons. It's been just about perfect.

Well, thanks for reading. Feel free to leave a comment so I know you've been here.

Love,

Dad

Here's a reporter/photographer with a eye for irony.

How can you tell if you are not the favorite child?

I keep telling Jake that a seat belt is needed even in the back seat. Here's proof.

More birds. Sorry. They were around when I had my camera so I included a few shots in this post. I know... a little boring; but it's fun to get the shots and I enjoy seeing them. I hope you do as well.

I've been hampered the last few days by a truck that is experiencing some mysterious electrical problems. It all started last Wednesday evening when I was at my office working until well after dark -- about 9:00 I think. When it was time to go home, I started up my truck and noticed the airbag warning light on the dash did not go off. Normally, the airbag system goes through a bit of a self-diagnostic routine to make sure all systems are go and then the light goes off. This time, the light stayed on.

So I decided to pull off the road (I was still on mine property), shut off the engine and restart it hoping that it would clear itself and the light would go off. It didn't. This time, it also would not shift out of park. There is an electrical connection between the brake pedal and a gear shift lock-out mechanism that prevents shifting out of park unless the brake pedal is depressed. Normally.

This was not normal. No matter what I did, I could not get it out of park. Brute force only makes things worse in these circumstances so I tried disconnecting the battery thinking that might force the computer to "reboot" these systems and clear out the problems. That didn't work. I tried shifting with brake on... not good. With brake off... still no good. It appeared I was stranded so I called Mom and put her on standby for a rescue.

A couple of mine employees stopped by asking if they could help but there was really nothing to do. It would not shift out of park no matter what I tried.

It was getting late by this time and I had a big day the next day and really did not want to deal with a truck that would not drive so I did what was left -- I prayed. It was a simple prayer asking the Lord to help me get my truck home.

Immediately and in quite a literal way, my eyes and my brain were directed to a small rectangular cover about one-fourth the size of a postage stamp next to the shift lever. I didn't know what it was but I was prompted to pry this cover off. There was a button beneath the cover. I pushed down on button and discovered that it was a mechanical bypass of the gear shift lock-out mechanism. After starting the truck, I pushed down the button and it shifted right into drive. It was an immediate and, under the circumstances, a rather dramatic example of knowledge (what to do) revealed through the Holy Ghost. Prior to receiving that inspiration/revelation, I did not know there existed such a thing as a mechanical bypass of the electrical lock-out. I was humbled by the immediacy of the answer to my short, but sincere, prayer.

It took a few days and dollars to finally get the electrical problems in my truck identified and repaired, but it is now working as before.

Jacob is in Utah. It's quiet here. We look forward to Jacob's return but are enjoying the quietness.

Bye for now.

Love,

Dad

This is fun...

See more funny videos and TBT Videos at Today's Big Thing.

This post is a few days late... and the photos are several weeks old. As you can see, these pics were taken on a hike in the Sabino Canyon area north of Tucson with Anna and Spencer. It was a fun day in a beautiful place.

The desert is an "acquired taste" for many people, but having grown up among the prickly pear, mesquite and saguaros, it's in my blood. I think I am drawn to the textures of the desert landscape. I love a beautiful forest, but I always feel like the textures of a desert -- at least the Sonoran Desert -- are far richer and more varied than the textures of the forest. Some people are put off by the blander colors of a desert (especially in a prolonged drought like the one in which we find ourselves at present), but I think the richer desert textures compensate for the lack of rich colors.

And actually, if one looks more than passingly at a desert landscape, one will find rich colors indeed. I refer to the vibrancy of almost every species of cactus blossom, the colorations of the various kinds of rocks and minerals visible in a desert, the depth of blue found only in a dry desert sky, the pure colors of desert wildlife such as a quail or fox or even a lizard's skin upon close examination.

I also like the cleanliness of a desert that stems from its aridity. There's not much mud in a desert, even immediately following a monsoon rainstorm.

So much for my musings on nature.

We are preparing for Jacob's departure. He will be spending June living with Mom's mom in Mapleton and doing some kind of occasional or regular work for his Uncle Ed. This will be the longest Jacob will have been away from home. Somehow, I don't expect him to be homesick. I think he is looking forward to getting away from the parents (or the payrents, as Spencer likes to call us).

Despite the occasional dustup, I have admired Jacob's patience in living alone with his parents. I think Mom and I have mellowed considerably since our earlier parenting years, but it must still be a bit of a challenge for Jake to have only his parents at his home. Sally comes around regularly and does yeoman's service as a sort of buffer or insulator, but most of the time, it's Jake and his parents rubbing against one another exclusively. The friction overheats the relationship once in a while. But overall, Jake does admirably with his "only child" status.

Our new back lawn was planted last Thursday. It's germination period was described in the packaging as between four and seven days. I've been watching intently for the little shoots of new grass but haven't seen any yet. It's been five days as of this afternoon (Tuesday). Perhaps tomorrow morning there will be a green sheen visible. I still harbor fears of the critters wreaking havoc with the new shoots -- rabbits, birds or ants. I'm hoping that once it sprouts, it grows fast enough to overwhelm any potential enemy of young green plants.

Thank you all for your comments to my last posting. There is clearly some "journal value" to a blog posting, but the real satisfaction comes from knowing one has readers and that the post generates some kind of response among the readers one cares about.

Take care of yourselves. Be safe. Take care of your little ones, if you have some, and get some little ones, if you don't. That's where true happiness lies.

Love,

Dad

I seem to be falling into a pattern of including a few recent photographs with a brief explanation of how they relate to current events in our lives.

First, however, I must express a small degree of disappointment to have received only one comment from my children attached to my last post. I suppose I equate readership with comments and, therefore, conclude that only Whitney read my last post. For that, Whitney, you put yourself in position to receive the greater share of whatever I leave behind when it comes time to leave this good earth. Of course, that may not amount to much, but it will be the thought that counts. The rest of you can, if you put forth the necessary effort, place yourselves back into my good graces (and my will) by leaving some trace of your reading of my posts either by direct comment or, for more discreet sentiments, direct e-mail responses will be acceptable. I was doubly disappointed to see such meager readership after taking the trouble to add a game of "Hangman" to my blog. If you get bored with the reading, you can at least play a game or two of Hangman and feel truly fulfilled for visiting my blog site.

Now on with the post... Jake and I worked like prison dogs yesterday to complete the sprinkler system in our new back yard lawn. I've included a picture above to give you some idea of the manual labor involved with digging trenches, assembling PVC pipe and joints and installing and testing the sprinklers themselves. We were hoping to actually plant grass yesterday, but the wind came up and I didn't want our lawn to be "scattered to and fro by every wind of doctrine" before it even got the chance to take root and grow.

But the watering system works as intended as I discovered by running it through a day-long test cycle. A secret to a new lawn is keeping it moist continuously while the baby shoots are tender to prevent the searing sun and dry winds to kill the young plants. I think this system combined with the frequency of irrigation programmed into the timer will be what the lawn doctor ordered.

Mom has returned to us just in time for Mother's Day. Spencer and Anna shared the weekend with us and Sally, T.J. and Rufus came by this afternoon to also pay their respects. Jake, Spencer, Anna and I went to see the new Star Trek moving last night while Mom waited for Chris Albright to remember to pick her up at the airport. Apparently Chris forgot about the airport arrangements despite a phone conversation about it just a few hours earlier. He and Peggy went to one of their kids' homes last night causing Chris to forget his pick-up duties. Mom waited patiently for quite some time and ended up being the last person to picked up at Terminal 2 before it shut down for the night. And like the trooper she is, she made the three-hour trip back across the Reservation to her Thatcher home arriving about 3:30 a.m. on Mother's Day.

I had high council meeting this morning so missed the morning Mother's Day breakfast. Mom was exhausted, as you might guess, so everyone was still here after my meeting having not gone to our own ward. We attended a later ward's sacrament meeting together and listened to some very fine talks on the timely topic of Mothers.

It's hard to believe the summer is at our doors. Eastern Arizona College has had its graduation so Mom's work should lighten up for the remainder of her academic year. Jake is finishing up his junior year of high school and looking forward to a summer of interesting plans and events. I will continue with my work -- for the mine, here at home and in the church.

We don't have many summer plans. There is a Hansen reunion here that I am partly in charge of considering that I am the only Hansen sibling living here locally. It will be a camping reunion and my charge is to oversee arrangements for a site on Mt. Graham. It will be around the 24th of July if case any of you readers are interested.

That's it for this week. This is not a "leave no trace" blog so please leave behind some indication that you've been here and read a few lines.

Take care and be safe.

Love,

Dad

A family of Red-tailed hawks has re-occupied its seasonal nest atop a power pole at the company's Dos Pobres copper mine near Safford. I shot these images a couple of days ago. I don't know how old the nestlings are. I think there are three of them. Both parents (Red-tailed Hawks are monogamous) take turns watching over the nest. I think (though not sure) the mother is pictured above.

Jake and my mother and wife left us today to travel to visit new granddaughter Eva in Washington for a few days. We have survived the first day. I had a delicious bowl of Campbell's soup from a can and Jake had a home-made milkshake for dinner. We will try to improve upon that cuisine in the coming days. I had actually invited a brother whom Jake and I hometeach to dinner, but he was unable to go. That left us with the Campbell's and the shake.

I spent much of the day at our Morenci Mine shooting pictures of employees at work. These are employees who have transitioned to part-time work from their full-time jobs due to cuts in production. They are generally upbeat about their situation though not entirely without some complaints about how they are being handled by the organization.

After five years with this company, I've come to realize that we are very good at mining copper, but not very good at administration. I think that is due partly to the difficulty in recruiting good business managers/leaders to our outpost mining locations (like Morenci) and partly because our leadership folks are mostly engineers who focus their attention on mining processes, equipment, etc., and don't often have the softer, people skills needed to manage the work force in effective ways.

Take care.

Love,

Dad

It's springtime in the desert. Our Palo Verde trees are covered with blossoms attracting bees and humming birds and the cotton fields are tinting toward green as the new plants begin to poke their leaves above the brown soil. We've had our first temperatures beginning with a nine and the quail are poking around looking for a safe place to lay their next clutch of spotted eggs.

More progress on the new lawn this week with the network of pipes, elbows and risers mostly in place to channel water to the sprinklers. Jake and I are hoping to actually plant the grass seed by next Saturday. Mom should come home to a new lawn after her trip to the new grandbaby.

Two wards in our stake received new bishoprics this weekend. I do not work with either ward (directly) so I wasn't much involved in the changes. It has, however, affected the composition of our high council. And a couple of long-serving high council members were released in our stake conference last week so we're getting to know several new brethren on the council. That makes me no longer among the newest of the high council members. In fact, there are now five members newer than me. Stake high councils, unlike the Quorum of the Twelve, have no system of "seniority" so it really makes no difference. But it is good to welcome new brethren and benefit from their unique experiences and capabilities.

Mom is excited to travel to Pullman to spend time with Rachel, Rob and her three Packer grandchildren. A small part of her excitement, I believe, is to get away from having to feed and clothe the two men left behind in the household. Jake and I are looking forward -- not necessarily enthusiastically -- to frozen pizzas, cold cereal and canned soup as our main fare while the mother and wife is away. We might try an occasional visit to one of the local Mexican restaurants for a burro and/or taco.

You've probably received notice from my sister Kathy by now about the Hansen reunion to be organized here in southeastern Arizona in July. It is looking to be a "camping reunion" with two or three days on Mt. Graham--a beautiful alpine setting less than an hour's drive from our home in Thatcher. I wouldn't imagine any of my "long-distance" children will be able to make it, but it should be fun for those who do. I think we are planning for July 23-25. It's all still in the formulation stage.

We (Mom and I) will be staying pretty close to home this vacation season. Jake is going to spend a month in Utah living with Grandma Budge and working with Ed in his clinic--sort of an internship, if you will. Mom and I will drive up the end of June to attend Mom's high school reunion and then drive Jake back home. We were planning a few days camping in a more distant location but the Hansen reunion plans caused us to change that to a Mt. Graham camp. But we are looking forward to a good summer, nonetheless.

I noted in the news today the U.S. declaring a national health emergency due to the swine flu outbreak. While it doesn't yet appear to be too threatening, I guess the potential is there for it to spread rapidly and become quite serious. It causes us to reflect on our state of preparation for such unforeseen circumstances that may disrupt normal life. (Is there such a thing as "normal" life?)

I've been doing some low-level family history work -- mostly poking around the new.familysearch.org website. I even found a couple of ancestors that needed some temple work so promptly printed out the temple forms and will take them to the Mesa Temple on our next visit. I've never actually done any temple ordinances for actual family members. I am looking forward to serving as the proxy for someone who is actually part of my extended family.

Finally, please all of you be most careful as you drive yourselves and your little ones (if you have them) in your vehicles. I do a fair amount of driving in my job and I know that we too often become complacent in our driving habits. It's easy to be fatigued -- especially when driving long distances -- and allow our attention to wander. That quite significantly increases the risk of an accident. Cell phone use while driving should also be avoided, although I am guilty of that at times. It is best to pull off the road or wait a few minutes until you are no longer driving to make or receive a call. As grandparents do, we worry about our children and grandchildren and want them always and all ways to be safe and secure.

Have a fantastic week.

Love, Dad

Thank you, Erin and Whitney, for your comments. I know at least two of my children read last week's post. Here's another...

We enjoyed stake conference yesterday and today. The principal theme was related to the Temple -- worshipping faithfully in the Temple, being worthy to enter the Temple, being prepared to have our own Temple close by in about a year. Like I suspect all stake conference are, the messages were timely, well-prepared and worth our attention. Our stake conference schedule here in Thatcher has always been within two or three weeks of General Conference. It makes for a good period of reassessment and review of where we are individually and as a family in relationship to where we should be in the most important areas of our lives.

Jake and I worked all day Saturday digging trenches and preparing for the installation of the new lawn's sprinkler system. I've put a couple of sprinkler systems in now and I enjoy the tasks of designing the system, choosing the parts needed and putting it all together. It's a bit like putting together a puzzle that, if done correctly, results in the intended purpose -- getting water to all parts of the area in the right amount and at the right time.

We are hoping to be ready to plant next weekend or possibly the weekend thereafter. Ground temperatures must be consistently above 65 degrees and I don't think we are quite there yet.

I mentioned last week about some very windy days we have had. That has moderated the last few days which have been very pleasant indeed. Thatcher has what I would consider an ideal climate, but for the periods of wind. I don't care for high winds. Spring winds are especially bothersome because the farmers are just getting their fields ready for planting cotton so the freshly plowed fields provide lots of dust for the wind to spread around.

Mom has been playing with her new pressure canner this weekend. She canned a dozen or so bottles of chicken meat and seven or eight quarts of pinto beans. It all worked out nicely. We opened a can of the pinto beans just to be sure they tasted good and they were very good. After smashing them up a little, they were better than store bought refried beans.

We are thinking about getting half a beef from a local slaughterhouse. We would freeze some of the cuts and can some other parts. That would be good for our food storage. They only problem with that is that we don't generally eat very much beef so getting that much would almost force us to eat more which may not be a good thing from the standpoint of overall health.

I hope you are all doing well. Enjoy your young lives with your young children. These years will fly be much faster than you might imagine and before you know it you are at home all alone or with your last child wondering where all the time went and wishing, in some ways, you could go back and teach your children a little more, spend a little more time with them, read them a few more books, carry them on your shoulders a few more times, go on a few more walks with them, visit Home Depot with them tagging along a few more times, going to Daddy-Daughter parties a few more years.

Thank you all for who you are and for what your are making of your lives.

Love,

Dad

After having posted one blog entry for the entire year of MMVIII, I think I may take up the keyboard again and see if I can improve upon that performance.

From its outset, this blog is intended primarily for my own family members and, even more specifically, those of my children who are married. I guess that's all but Jacob who hears enough from me up close and personal as it is.

We enjoyed a nice, quiet Easter Sunday, although my high council duties kept me from attending our own ward with Mom and Jake. I am presently assigned to the Mt. Graham 4th Ward which is the young single adult ward in the stake. We have three college ward for the students at Eastern Arizona College and one single adult ward for young people who live at home while attending college or who are single and not attending college. It's a small ward with about 55 or so members.

Conference weekend was very nice and we enjoyed the sessions of conference very much. I'm sure each of us hears our own special messages and themes based on our own needs and how the spirit works within us. I was impressed with what I thought was a theme of strengthening our own personal faith and testimony, recommitting ourselves to the work of the Restoration and making sure our "lamps" are filled with oil in preparation for whatever the future may bring.

Along those lines, Mom and I (mostly Mom) have been spending time reassessing our physical and financial preparations -- Provident Living, if you will. Mom is great in this area and seems to have us well-prepared from a food and basic necessities perspective. Financially, we have a bit of work to do but are taking steps to better prepare for retirement, etc.

I would encourage all of you young families to spend a little time considering and learning how you might begin (if you don't already) some small steps toward long-term savings and investments. It is quite amazing how a relatively little amount of money saved regularly over a long time in the right investment instrument can grow to a very large sum over the course of 30 to 40 years. Had we done that better in our younger married years, we might not have quite so much concern now. (We don't really have a great deal of concern, but we more clearly now understand the missed opportunities of our early married years.

Our big home project currently is planting a back lawn. Jake and I have worked hard to excavate an area in the back, fill it with topsoil, till in manure and now get a sprinkler system installed for what we hope will be a very nice, fairly large patch of grass. That feature, combined with a retaining wall and other work, will help tremendously in making our back yard a useable place and an extension of our living area. We've had several days of quite heavy wind the last two or three weeks which has not been helpful in completing this project.

We spoke with Rachel "face-to-face" over the Internet this evening and saw her beautiful new baby girl, Eva. What a fantastic birthday gift for our second daughter. Mom is beside herself with anticipation of flying to Washington to actually hold the new granddaughter in her arms. Jake and I are not looking forward to our own cooking and cleaning for 10 days.

We are proud of all of our children and their accomplishments and activities. My patriarchal blessing, received when I was 17 years old, describes my future children as "loving and serving the Lord... with a testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in their hearts..." It promises that "this indeed will be [my] reward for [my] faithfulness in serving the Lord and keeping His commandments at all times." I have more work to do in that latter phrase, but seeing my children make good and right choices and staying faithful to their covenants and our covenants is truly the blessing I value most -- with the one exception of the blessing of being married to your mother.

I hope you all have a great week.

Love,

Dad