Family adventures

Many years ago I was at a little kindergarten thingy for Javin watching the festivities through the viewfinder of the video camera. The viewing of the video proved unsatisfying and I can't remember ever looking at it again. I do enjoy looking at old photos of my dad and such but when looking, I can't smell the Old Spice cologne that he wore, I can't hear him etc... My memory is so much more three dimensional than any photo or video could ever recreate. In the years since that kindergarten program, I have tried to strike a balance between experiencing life as it happens and fully partaking of it with my senses-if I can snap a picture or two along the way it's a bonus but I try to not let it be at the expense of the experience itself. It's a delicate balance.

My dad used to have to set up a screen and a projector to view family photos and it was a bit of a chore and if one person wasn't interested in a slide or a set of slides they just had to wait until the projectionist moved on to another slide. There was still some value in the communal experience of a couple of families or another group of people watching together but it had its downsides.

Gramma Ross lamented on our Thanksgiving trip that she doesn't have any current photos of us and we are going to get that corrected shortly but I realized that the world has evolved again from what was a slide show to a scrapbook/photo album to what is now an online photojournal or blog. This particular posting has a fair share of photos but we still tried to let the picture taking be secondary to the experience itself. I have been a "digital" DJ for a decade now but I still get people coming up once in awhile with a CD... "Ummm... can you play this?" I respond with, "Oh, a CD, how quaint!"

Here are our adventures since we last posted.
Hiking in the local desert on Christmas Eve.
I think this may be one of the best pics ever taken of Shaw. He's just the handsomest brute ever!

That's Red Mountain in the Distance.

The camera doesn't show it but he's about 8 feet up on that rock. Enough that it would hurt if he took a tumble.

Lesa and Shaw made Graham cracker houses. This one above is Lesa's.

This one is Shaw's- cool feature of note is the diving board on the right side that goes into the pool of blue M&M's. Shaw has a gift for landscape design with the green grass M&Ms and the vanilla wafer stepping stones and everything.

Bar-b-que ribs at Lucilles in Tempe and the view from the front porch there.

Artificial snow falling at the Christmas tree you see in the last pic. It's just glycerin/dish soap stuff but once the kids get all excited it's hard not to get excited with them. Lots of laughter and hugging and picture taking and stuff....

I'm getting more comfortable with my grey hair... but it looks worse with the fake snow in it.

Here's another shot of the snow.

Lesa has had this crazy-awesome bag for some time but I've never got a shot of it.

Family gathering at my brother, Garry's house with all my siblings. That's Garry on the left, then Lauri, then Cindy then me, Curtis. Shaw's cousin, Ben shaking his fist in the background between Lauri and Garry.

This is Shaw and all of his Whipple, Benson and Hale cousins.

Visit to the Gilbert Temple site. The fence that had blown down in the wind on the last visit was righted so it was hard to see any progress that could be photographed. Since I worked in construction in my past life, I was able to detect the progress but there's not much to see for the untrained eye. It may be several months before anything starts to rise above the fence line.

Turkey Trot

PLEASE WELCOME SPECIAL GUEST BLOGGER- SHAW WHIPPLE!

Hello my name is Shaw. This is me doing the The Turkey Trot. I am sure you would have a celebration the day before Thanksgiving break. Some have food, some play or go on vacation.

I love to run. The guy in front of me I never liked. I eventually passed him to my friend Mario, 9th from last. Then we went to lunch. After lunch, I played football and I even fumbled Jordan, which made him crrrrrrrrrrryyyyyy like a wwweeee baby. He was a tattle tale. Lucky me for doing a fast pass, we won. My team always wins, no matter what.

December in AZ

It was a good weekend for some adventures. Sunny and high 70s in Arizona... two weeks before Christmas. Me and Shaw popped in for a few minutes to see a Hot Wheels racing club. There is a hobbyist/enthusiast group that sets up in a mall parking lot once a month or so and you can bring whatever car you want and winner takes both cars. Shaw considered bringing a couple of cars for the next one but decided he couldn't risk losing one even if he MIGHT win one.
Spent a little time out at Fountain Hills. You can come up with your own caption for this one. We did have some spicy hot dogs for lunch at Chicagoland Dogs'n More...

It's one of three equally tall fountains in the world but each still claims to be the tallest when the others aren't listening. It's 560 feet tall and I've never been able to get a shot that does it any justice.

Downtown Mesa for an art and music festival.

If it was just an art and music festival, I probably couldn't have convinced Shaw to partake but there was a pretty cheesy/good juggling show that made him laugh and a couple of bouncy jumps to get the wiggles out and he had to trade me for a few songs in front of a steel drum reggae band and then a really good Latin jazz band and I got to talk to a few artists and craftsmen and craftswomen.

He's a handsome kid eh? This is just some of the architecture/water features at the Performing Arts Center here in Mesa.

Christmas lights at the Temple

Normally, Mondays are for family HOME evening but we had family OUT evening last night because we are rebels. It was a beautiful evening and we went down to the temple to look at the Christmas light display. Shaw and Lesa were looking particularly handsome and beautiful respectively. I guess the lighted camel display in the background made him so happy that a spontaneous dancing of the Mamushka happened.

The star of Bethlehem and the nativity display in the background.

The Dairy Queen adjacent to the temple probably does most of its profitable business during the Christmas lights display and the Easter Pageant each year. We added to their success for now but if they keep up with the crummy hot chocolate they won't have us back next year. Shaw had a mint Oreo Blizzard and I had a cherry Dilly Bar and Lesa went for the warm brown water...
Family shot with the camera at my arm's length.

Passing the torch

Shaw beat his old man at a game of chess this week. I did give him an "are you sure? stare" early in the game where he was about to lose his Queen and he quickly realized his error and I let him rethink his move. Other than that, he beat me fair and square. He plays aggressively and he's clearly thinking 2 or 3 moves ahead at this early stage. For those who know chess, it is a complex game but one that even a 9 yr old who has only been playing for 3 or 4 months can grasp and even excel at.

Here's what happened to me: A smart player will usually make an escape route for the king within the first two or three moves of a game. I did that but then later in the game I used a castle maneuver where the rook and the king kinda trade places (there can be no players between the king and the rook and it has to be a first move for both players and the rook takes the king's place and the king goes one space before where the rook was) So, my king was behind three pawns and Shaw got on to my back row and I couldn't block, capture or escape. It was checkmate!

For a few decades, computers could not beat humans at chess but that weakness only seemed to be a function of not being able to consider all of the millions of possibilities in the given time and then making a decision. The human didn't consider the millions of possibilities but only the 3 or 4 moves that mattered. In the last decade, computers gained enough speed to consider the millions of possibilities in the given time and they finally beat the human chess masters.

It's a pleasure to watch Shaw weed out the fluff and focus on the moves that matter and be thinking of strategy and be willing to sacrifice a player to achieve a goal.

When I was a kid, I attended the Stowell family reunion each summer and part of the festivities was always a checkers tournament. It was single elimination in the interest of time and there were always two or three checker boards around Gramma and Grampa's house and you had to look at the chart and just schedule a game with you opponent and then the championship of the world game would be played Saturday night and for a long time, Grampa Stowell was always the champ. When I was about 14 or so, my older sister Lauri met and fell in love and became engaged to Kevin and he attended his first Stowell reunion and he beat all takers and rose to the top of the bracket and the championship game was to be played between Grampa Stowell and this new guy- Kevin. Well, he beat Grampa Stowell and I remember Gramma Stowell actually **GASPING** in shock that someone could beat Grampa Stowell. She was visibly shaken. I was 14 and shouldn't have had the life experience to understand that and put it into any context but I knew it was a big deal- the younger generation rising to the occasion...

Congratulations to Shaw on a big win! You GO boy!

Alas poor November, I hardly knew ye!

Lots of stuff to share this week. I'll let the photos do most of the talking.

My buddy, Scott, from Orange County CA came for a visit this week. He and I went hiking and did a couple of DJ jobs together. He rode all that way on a Honda 250- that's a small engine for such a large desert crossing! Shaw got to go for a ride around the neighborhood and he was pretty jazzed about that. Scott even let him handle the throttle.
The dollhouse (see previous posts about that for an explanation) was displayed by Lesa in a cultural arts celebration and here are a couple of photos of the festivities. Here's Lesa illuminating some of the cool stuff in there to a Stake leader in attendance.A view from the back with all of the miniaturized furnishings and knick-knacks from Gramma Margaret.

Another interested attendee.

I helped Shaw make a new flagpole for the Cub Scout Pack that is much nicer than a piece of conduit with a flag screwed on and a #10 can filled with concrete. It has a really nice and stable but lightweight stand and a nice wooden pole that is stained and varnished. He's describing the features to Brother Corrington. In my opinion, one of the coolest features is the vines that Lesa painted going up the side of the house that you can see in this shot. I'll get a closer view a bit later. We still have some "icing on the cake" detail work that we want to do and we'll post pictures again later. Just click on the photo for a larger view.

We have been driving to the Stake Center construction site after church each week to view progress and Shaw leaned over in church this week and said that since the Stake Center was done, perhaps we could drive to the Gilbert Temple construction site each week. It's about 25 minute drive and I suggested we go once a month instead. They just broke ground last week but the contractor already has it mostly graded and it's well underway. Scott took this picture of Shaw and I arriving at the site. Lesa was in a meeting and couldn't come this time.

I'll try to remember this spot and get a monthly shot of Shaw growing up with the progress of the temple at his back.

Shaw is getting to be a pretty good photographer. Here's me and my friend Scott at the temple site.

It's a substantial piece of property and I'm anxious to see it starting to take shape. The construction fence had blown down in the wind so we could see things better.

I had some DJ adventures this month too and photos of all that can be seen over on the other blog.

Veterans Day

We had so much to be thankful for that we had to celebrate Veterans Day two days in a row.

DAY ONE-

Shaw's school does a "donuts for dads" thang each year. They just ask the dads to bring the kids to school one morning and have a donut and a glass of milk compliments of the PTO. I once made the mistake of commenting in a PTO meeting that I wanted to be sure that the value added to community spirit and to the academic and social lives of our kids was equal to or greater than the expense of the event each year. Oops... hit a soft spot with the other attendees of the PTO meeting... I don't mind spending money on anything but I just want my value out of it. This may be the only outward thing to express their love that lots of dads do in a whole year for many of those kids. You can see that it is very well attended.

When you have a Krispy Kreme donut in your hand- that's happiness.

Right after the Donuts for Dads, they have a Veterans Day remembrance for about 20 minutes as school begins with a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance and the Preamble. There were a couple of songs by the 6th Grade Choir and some thank-yous to the veterans in attendance.I ran into one of my past instructors from University of Phoenix- a veteran. I shook his hand and thanked him for the class and then I shook his hand again and thanked him for his service to our nation. I was so enjoying chatting with him that I lost my presence of mind to have Lesa snap a photo of us.

DAY TWO-

I had a customer in my office at 9AM on Veterans Day proper and right after that, we went to the local parade in downtown Mesa.

Here's Shaw out at the edge of the street looking at the military hardware.

Several antique cars on parade. It seems that the Mesa Historical Society has about 12 cars in a collection.

A fly-by of some historic planes from WWI and WWII.

A Viet Nam era helicopter that got Shaw all excited.

How can you not respect and admire men and women who not only wear all of this gear but the uniform of the nation that they defend and represent? They do what they do in OUR name. God Bless America!

It was a great parade and the perfect day for it. Overall a bit too long with a bunch of unknown local politicians, local celebrities I've never heard of and a few winning contestants of obscure beauty pageants. It was balanced with lots of Scout Troops, all of the local high school marching bands and a couple of jr high bands and several veterans organizations.

I got a bit miffed by a few shameless commercial interests, like auto dealerships and such, that only displayed a flag or an aforementioned pageant winner and called it a parade entry when it was really an advertisement for goods and services. It just didn't seem the place for it.

The middle of the parade was a collection of photographs of recently fallen servicemen and women from Arizona. We stood with hands on our hearts and I crrrrried like a weeeeeee bay bee! I didn't get any photos of that because I had too much reverence for the moment.