Boys and Snow!!

It is amazing what the inventive mind of two 6 and 9 year old boys can come up with when you have a foot of packable snow! That is a 3 1/2 foot high pile of snow! That is James the 6 year old on top "defending" his "Secret" fort!




That is Andrew immersed into his snow fort.
James, his cousin, yelled at me because it is "Secret"! No pictures!
But do you think I could get them to shovel the truck out?




What and engineering feat! Who can stand in the way of a boy and his building project.


Now Grandma is upset because they are soaked! Women! They just do not get it!

It is very late and in order to pass time profitably I turned to the videos on MeridianMagazine.com and a specific one about forgiveness hit me strongly. I just went through a minor incident with Marilyn falling, breaking her nose and dislocating her right shoulder. I was never in danger of losing her but I was greatly affected by a lack of ability to do anything for her. I called 911 and the paramedics employed by the city of Orem were there within 5 minutes and they got her up and onto a stretcher and into the ambulance. They put me into the front seat of the ambulance, out of the way so they could do their job. Two friends both High Priests came by ready to assist but because of circumstances could not.
When we got to the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center Emergency Room she was quickly moved into a room and the staff there took over. My son-in-law Dan Heyworth came dressed in a suit jacket and tie and ready to assist me in giving Marilyn a blessing. I had been silently praying that she would be alright so as soon as a lull came we pushed the door nearly closed and he anointed and I sealed and blessed her. In the blessing I was moved to tell her that the pain would abate in a while and then blessed the medical staff that they would be able to properly diagnose and prescribe correctly.
It took about 2 1/2 hours for that blessing to come to fact but after xrays it was determined that she did have a dislocated shoulder. The appropriate staff was assembled and she was given medication to put her out for 5 minutes and the doctor watched her relax and the arm become limp. He then moved to relocate her shoulder and then test it. He then turned to me and said "That was an easy one" indicating to me that the blessing had been granted.
Now the video on MeridianMagazine.com which has a link to mormon.org is about forgiveness. But it is also about a man who lost his wife and two kids to a drunk driver and his process of how he has forgiven the young man and affected many because of it.
The surrounding story is what affected me in how we are in a fragile existence and it can change in the blink of an eye. We need to understand just who we are, children of a Living God. We are here to be tried and tested. We are not the center but He is the center and IF we realize that then our life here will be filled and fulfilled.
Check out the video. http://www.meridianmagazine.com/42/videodirectlink
It may change your life. It has made me think.

OK It has been a very long time since I posted and a lot has happened.

Callings: We were released from the Nursery especially since it would wear me out. I would come home and take a two hour nap. So I became one of the 11 year old boy teachers. Great calling but a month into it I got released as they wanted the 11 year old scout leader to take this class too. Later yet I got called as the Ward Employment Specialist. The current one is a BYU professor who is going on a year sabbatical to do a dig in a middle eastern country. Wow.

So as the Employment Specialist I needed some training so I went to the Career workshop that runs two days. The workshop is to train you on how to do an interview with a “Me in 30 seconds” statement that describe your self and several power statements that answer the interviewer’s questions with information on how you would solve or have solved those problems in the past. Because I was not prepping for an interview I made up a statement about genealogy. The guy seated next to me asked me where I was from (and me with my Yankee accent). I replied born in New Hampshire and raised in Connecticut. Where’s your family from? NE Mass and SE NH. He then told me that he had some CDs to show me.

When I came back from lunch there was an 8 pack box of the digitized versions of the “Vital Records of ___________ Massachusetts to 1849” and the “Genealogy of the Mayflower descendants” ! WOW! WOW! He said that he previously had published these and sold the Mayflower disk for $160 and the 8 pack for $150. They are great! All this because I was called as the Ward Employment Specialist. Marilyn is using them extensively and has added several hundred names. Now tell me that there are not people helping from the other side of the veil! Rightttt!

Well Rachel is helping me fix the blog so I will do more later.

I tried this before but didn't know how to get rid of the annoying music.
We had a rainy spring and early summer and the yard has bloomed because of it. Stepping out of the front door under that large English Walnut feels like New England. It has beautiful cool shade and save lots on AC.
Marilyn had really kept up with the garden and like the joke says, "If I do not lock the car door at church it will be full of zucchini" and we have scads of it. Now we have many loaves of zucchini bread.
Enjoy the show.

Rainbow

The rainbow is God's Reminder that he will not flood the world again. Today the heaven's opened up and poured for about 20 minutes. Lightening flashed and Thunder immediately followed meaning a very close hit.
I remembered that I had left the truck windows open so I dashed out to the car, stepped into a 3 inch deep puddle in front of the steps, ran to the truck , observed a 3 ft wide river running down the brand new sidewalk and jumped into the truck. My seat squished and my rear became soaked instantly but I did get the windows closed.
Marilyn glanced out our east facing picture window and said "Look at the beautiful rainbow!" so I dashed out again to take the pictures.
To my astonishment there was a partial double rainbow!. Believe me it was more beautiful than the pictures show. But enjoy it anyway

DAD

Today we celebrated my 50-20th birthday. (yeah that really is 70 but...) The city of Orem has a system of about 20 local parks and we met in Nielsen's Grove on 2000 South. It is well maintained and handy to get to. We had about 35 attend and it was very rewarding to have new friends from the mission and ward, older friends from the earlier mission and old friends from much earlier in life.
At heart I am a little doubtful of my contribution to life and this was a great ego booster for me. A lot of nice things were said. Kristen took pictures and I will post them in a day or so.
Physically it was very tiring as I was on my feet for 2 hours talking to friends.
However, I am very grateful to Melissa who organized the 'potluck' and Mom for the cake and to all who made me feel very special.
Thank you all who attended. I love and appreciate you, your friendship and support. It gives me incentive to want to celebrate my 50-25 accomplishment.

Bowling

Seeing Rachel’s blog about her son Allan’s (my namesake) interest in bowling reminded me about my experience in bowling.

In 1966/67 I was stationed at the Guided Missiles School at Dam Neck, Virginia, located just south of Virginia Beach, teaching computer maintenance. I was participating in the base intramural bowling league and having a ball (pun intended). Money was tight so when I heard about a job opening at the bowling alley, I applied and started right away. At first I was just a cashier but opted to be trained on the AMF pinsetter machines and became a mechanic. Soon they eliminated the cashier position and gave the mechanic double duty. Lucky me! One of the benefits of the job was free bowling so I took advantage and soon built my average from 135 to 165 then tried out for and made the base bowling team. There were those who did not believe I would make it but I proved them wrong.

There are several military bases in the Norfolk /Virginia Beach area and they sponsored a scratch (no handicap) league that toured the bases. The base recreation department bought us fancy shirts and we practiced on Saturday morning’s right after the alley’s weekly maintenance period. Most of the members of the team also worked at the bowling alley so we were already there. Dam Neck being a small base did not have the talent to draw from as the other bases did so consequently we finished at the bottom of this league. But it was a real experience.

The team also joined a local 900 scratch money league. The 900 figure was based on a sanctioned league average of 180 and the total of the 5 members starting average had to be less than 900. This leveled the playing field and there was a lot of very close games. My sanctioned summer league average was 165 which allowed a couple of our guys with 185 and 190 averages to be on the team. In actuality my starting average was much closer to 175. Because it was a money league each participant added $1.50 per week above our bowling fees which went into a pot that the paid out at the end of the season. Our team won 1st place in the league mainly because of my low starting average and better performance during the league.

During the season I had several games near 235 and in the base intramural league I had a 285 game with a string of 9 strikes. I saw one of the other bowlers in the money league string 15 strikes (should be a perfect 300 but…), 3 to close out the first game and then string 9 more. In the first ball of the 10th frame he bowled a strike but stepped on the foul line so it negated that strike but he closed out with 2 more strikes for a 290. The tension of bowling that well builds with each strike and you really have to control your emotions and shut out everything else to continue successfully. Bowling is not just a physical game but a mental game as well as is every sport.

At the end of the season we entered a local money tournament and came in second place. I got real hot in this tournament and bowled a 657 (average of 219) for the three games. That pushed us way up in the score. We actually came out with the high scratch score but due to starting handicaps one other team beat us by a whisker.

At this time in my life I did not understand the Words of Wisdom however I did learn an allied lesson. I learned that just the slightest bit of alcohol would alter my timing and throw off my score by 10 to 20 pins. Just like booze and driving do not mix, booze and sports do not mix. Bowling is a mechanical sport requiring one to repeat your delivery accurately every time. Then knowing the mathematics of the angles of delivery of the ball will get one to the 175 average easily. Better bowlers then learn to read the physics of the lane to predict what the ball will do each time it rolls down the lane and alter their delivery angle and speed to compensate. The best bowlers also learn to control their emotions so that their performance is repeatable. Adrenalin does funny things to you and the excitement of stringing strikes together raises the tension significantly. Learning to handle the emotions in those kinds of situations tells the difference between a good player and a very good player. Physical conditioning also plays a part so that you do not tire altering your consistency.

However, I have probably have been bowling 5 times since then because of ships schedules, growing family needs and much different priorities in life. I had a great time that season and learned some life long lessons. Now I am just too far out of shape (round is a shape) to bowl again.