Halloween 2010

Here's Shaw at the church Halloween party this evening. He's dressed as Dr. Peter Venkman- the Ghostbuster.

His outfit also included a ghostbusting backpack. (Just remember that when ghostbusting, you shouldn't cross the proton streams)
We have been dissatisfied with the profanity and general crudeness of television and movies in recent years but couldn't monitor or censor everything. We just avoided obvious media choices that we thought would be unacceptable. When an instance of profanity came up unexpectedly one of us or all of us would shout "BAD WORD!" As we became conscious of the language by calling it out every time, we got to a point that we couldn't abide having cable TV in our house anymore. We were paying hard-earned money to have that stuff in our house! No longer.

Now that Shaw is 9 we thought he might be old enough to be introduced to one of the classics- Bill Murray and Dan Ackroyd in "Ghostbusters". We found the DVD in a $5 bargain bin and found ourselves shouting "BAD WORD" over and over... again. I had forgotten how many instances of profanity were in that one.

Nonetheless, Shaw was equally frightened but enthralled with the movie and has become a fan.

That kid is getting all growed up

We've been taking care of some major life changes recently and as part of that, doing some major cleaning of the house that we are trying to put our home in- getting rid of lots of stuff from the past and things we no longer have need of.

I have had a pair of roller blades for 20 years and I used to ride them once a week or so from Azusa to Irwindale CA along a paved recreation trail beside the San Gabriel River to my office- about a 16 mile round trip. I would ride my mountain bike a couple of the other days. The first day I ever used the skates to get to work was a disaster. The trail takes you across the Santa Fe flood control dam for a couple of miles and then down the other side in a long steady downward grade beside the spillway and across Arrow Highway to my office and then it continues south to Disneyland, and Angels Stadium in Anaheim and then on to Long Beach and the Pacific Ocean. I was riding down that grade on skates for the first time- remember, I had only owned the skates for a week. I was alarmed at how quickly I gained speed and was losing control. I was switching back and forth to the right and left to each side of the trail in an effort to slow myself, but I took a major tumble and scraped, bruised and otherwise sliced up half of my body. I got up and brushed myself of at a point where the trail levels for a moment before it continues down for the second half. Rather than taking off the skates and walking down the remainder of the dam, I said, "Well, I'm halfway down and I just learned a lesson, I'll just finish it up." I was again alarmed at how quickly I gained speed and was losing control. Near the bottom, I took another major tumble and I scraped, bruised and otherwise cut up the other half of my body. It was knees, elbows, chin and cheeks, (the cheeks on my face AND the ones on my backside) shoulders, hips- I was a bloody mess. I called my wife when I got to my office and said, "I made it... I'm bleeding." Had I not been wearing a helmet and some leather gloves my head and hands would have been included in the bleeding as well.

Shaw saw the skates in a pile of things that were to go to a local charity and he couldn't resist having me help him strap them on and show him how they work. They are way too big for him, but he figured it out in about 3 minutes and was skating up and down the block like an old pro. Notice he's wearing a helmet too.

New Stake Center

We attended a ground breaking ceremony for a new church building last year. We've been a stake for two years now but we haven't had our own building. It's nearing completion this week. There will be a public open house and a dedication ceremony in November. If you don't know, a Stake in the LDS church is like a diocese in the Catholic faith. It's comprised of several congregations and the term has reference to the mobile tabernacle or tent of Zion back in Moses' time which is held down by stakes. There was a command for Zion to expand her stakes and this is one of those instances.

Here's a pic of our Stake President, Craig Ostler speaking at the ground breaking ceremony. He's probably about the finest man you could ever know. He had the contractor place a telephone pole in the center of what would be the chapel and then they tied several hundred ribbons to the top for each child or family to hold out like a may pole so that we would symbolically see the significance of expanding our "stake" and that it was done with people. People doing service and loving and teaching. He contends that it's the largest object lesson in the history of the Church. I'm not going to disagree. It was moving. I wept upon the dove release with the choir singing at the end- Crrrrrr-ied like a weeeee bay-be!

We have been driving by every Sunday after church to watch the progress. Once the shell of the building was kinda done, it was hard to see any progress because the bulk of the work was going on inside with electrical, plumbing, painting, carpet etc. This last two weeks have been busy again with paving, striping, landscaping and various other finish work. Lesa and Shaw took this picture. You can see the new building in the background. We like this picture because it has reference to a favorite Mormon hymn entitled, "Put your Shoulder to the Wheel" in reference to pushing a wagon or handcart across the plains like the Mormons did in the 1840s and 1850s. The work of the Lord gets done by people living like good Christians and putting a little muscle into it.

We'll post a picture of the completed building next week.

Loaded for bear!

Shaw earned his Bear award in Cub Scouts last month. He had to enter the cave of the bear and fight him. You can see that he won- skinned him alive! In the background of each of these pics, you can see the bear cave that he had to enter and do the deed.

It was a lot of flag presenting, learning how to tie a necktie, playing Cub Scout games, memorizing the Cub Scout motto and oath and the Pledge of Allegiance and he seems to have done the whole thing with sandals on! I woulda thunk that bear killin' would require at least a closed-toe shoe...

Everybody knows darn well that it wouldn't happen without the moms. Lesa happens to be a Den leader for the Wolf pack which Shaw graduated from last year.
GO SHAW!