Shaw is 11 years old!

We hired a mobile video arcade to come to our house for Shaw's 11th birthday.  

If you have one of these pull up at your house, you are the coolest kid in the neighborhood.  The only thing that could have made it cooler is if they could have picked him up from school in that. 

Lesa made a candy cake with all of Shaw's favorite candies.  The picture doesn't do it any justice but it's a feat of engineering! 

 Here's Shaw and several of his mates in the game truck. 

Lesa is giving instructions on what will be a pinata style distribution of the cake.  We intented for everybody to take turns grabbing a couple of packages of candy from the cake in an orderly fashion but it became a free-for-all with some hurt feelers and everything.  Everybody got free candy in the end but some got more than others and it damaged the sense that all is right with the universe...

Shaw opened a few gifts aftereverybody had a slice of pizza and went home.  He got about $50 in cash and gift cards!  SCORE!  Happy 11th Birthday to Shaw.   

He's getting growed up ril gud!

Shaw earned several Cub Scout awards and they were presented at the Blue and Gold Banquet a couple of weeks ago.  Although I didn't get a picture of them, we got a visit from Gramma and Grampa Ross who drove from California and got here just in time for the dinner and ceremony. They forgot the 1 hour time zone difference and they were really cutting it close.  Grampa Ross treated us to Italian gelato after and they had to go to thier hotel and they drove back to California the next morning.  

The Cubmaster fired up the Time Machine after dinner...

...and we had a visit from Lord Baden Powell with some stories from his adventures in North Africa in 1899 and the birth of the Boy Scouts. 

                                 Cubmaster McKay

We retired outdoors around the fire of the scouting gods for the presentation of the Webelos and Arrow of Light awards. 

There were feats of strength... along with other feats of memory and bravery.

Also in attendance were Uncle Garry and Aunt Cindy- my (Curtis') siblings. 

Congratulations to Shaw... you ROCK!

Getting closer!

Paid another visit to the Gilbert Temple site today after church meetings.  As we were nearing the site and the construction cranes and the steeple came in to view from a distance, I almost thought I saw the traditional Angel Moroni statue already placed on the top. I'm glad I was mistaken.  That last bit already has the granite attached- probably before it was hoisted up there- and the granite on the rest of the steeple will be installed shortly I'm sure.

                   

There is a missionary couple assigned to the site with a quasi visitor center and a viewing deck but they are there only on 2nd and 4th Sundays for a couple of hours in addition to a regular weekday schedule.  I spoke to Elder Miller and he said that the statue will be placed some time in March.  We are not in the Gilbert Temple district and I doubt that the date will be announced publicly in any case but I'd sure like to be there on the day they place it.  He also said that the granite would have been further along by now.  I'll have to visit again during visiting hours and get an update. 

He once was lost, but now is...

FOUND!  We found him!  He was at the Arizona Sea Life Aquarium all along.  (Nemo)  He was a lot smaller in person or... err.. in fishness than I thought he would be.  Just as colorful though. 

I don't have the best of cameras so this looks almost like a painting.  That's actually a giant school of live fish swimming in formation behind Lesa. 

Here's Shaw sticking his head up in a viewing bubble underneath one of the tanks. 

Wouldn't want to tangle with this guy in a dark alley...

There is a glass tunnel through the biggest tank.  I almost screamed like a girl with several of these guys swimming around, but I contained myself. 

Pizza at Spinatos after... Shaw laughing at a funny joke. 

New glasses, new haircut, new man!

This posting is only partly about a great haircut... look at what's on Shaw's face in the mirror! 

The nurse at Shaw's school sent a note home last month that she detected something seriously wrong with Shaw's vision in his left eye.  We went to a optometrist and got it dialed in.  Shaw picked out the coolest frames in the history of glasses. 

What better to go with a cool new pair of glasses than a cool haircut.  For the longest time, Shaw has always just had a buzz cut on the back porch with dad's electric clippers a couple of times a year.  He's kinda out grown that and needed a professional hair cut for this occasion. 

After the haircut, we were back to the optometrist for another test.  They did a pupil dilation to really study his retina and optic nerve and everything.  It all looks healthy and the optometrist thinks there will be a great degree of natural correction now that his left eye has a clear image for his brain to process. 

Too cool for cats...

We love the desert

It's nice to be out hiking in February in shorts and t-shirts.  The weather right now is a gift from God called "October through May" and we accept it graciously.  Shaw is standing in front of an Ocotillo bush.  Next month they will blossom for about 3 weeks and every branch will be covered from top to bottom in bright red flowers. 

 

Lots of greenery for a desert.   There's a Mesquite tree on the left, a Palo Verde straight ahead and a Saguaro Cactus at about 11 o'clock. 

This is the fountain at Fountain Hills in the distance.  It's zoomed in from about 20 miles away.  We've visited up close a few times as well.  It's as tall as a 50 story building. 

Any ideas what this thing is?  It's fenced off about 50 yards on all sides... not high security chain link with razor wire or anything, just standard 3-strand barbed wire and posts.  I walked up to it and noted that it is riddled with bullet holes.  Someone had scratched in the paint, "What is this?"  another scratched below, "ballistics tester"  I thought it might have been a man made nest for an endangered bird or something. 

It's hard to make out in this pic, but Four Peaks is in the distance with a little bit of snow on it. 

Two lovers watching the sunset- King and Queen of all they survey.

Here's Clan Whipple- the family for whom the blog is named. 

Behind the scenes

Shaw went to work on a big event with me this week at a really cool concert venue in Scottsdale.  Those two road cases that he's sitting next to- he wheeled those up the ramp in the loading dock and up on the stage.  He's having a snack break now- union rules...  

Another company called Creative Backstage setting up an LED screen at the rear of the stage.

Shaw took the camera and to get a shot of his old man but only got a silhouette of me as the LED screen was being tested.  I was setting up the sound equipment. 

More testing...  Those speakers on the floor at the foot of the stage will be going back up to sit on the edge so that the musicians performing later will be able to hear themselves properly. 

"Recharge!" was the name of the event.  "Venue" (in red) is the...well... it's the venue... it's very posh and Scottsdale-ish- kinda like a singer with one name like "Sting" or "Cher" or "Madonna"  I'm not sure it flows as nice though..."Venue..." nah...  I wasn't sure it looked very good to have left a hole in the LED screen so that the Venue sign would show through.  There are some support cables holding up the lower sections since they aren't attached to a section of screen above.  When the theater was darkened and the screen and everything came on, it looked really good.  You could see the violet lighting behind the screen shining upward on the brick wall and creating really cool shadows.   

This next shot is taken just as the event was about to start and the room was all set.  The balcony on the upper right and behind my head makes this bigger than one would think.  Our event had 500 people but they put about 800 people in for concerts.  There is an expansion going on that will accommodate 1500 people in this space soon.

My friends- The Lisa Pressman Ensemble playing some great jazz.  You can see my DJ workstation just going out of the shot on the right.  The combo played a 45 minute set and I played the rest of the night before and after them. 

Shaw had already gone home by this point but here's the load out... breaking down the trusses and getting everything back in the road cases and heading home.