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.