Flood of emotions

It's been so long since I have posted on this blog that what I want to say right now won't make any sense. But I hope in the next little while to provide the missing context and explain why I have been silent so long. 

Our Sunbeam, Evan, is going to be singing with the Primary kids next week for Mother's Day. Watching him in their practice session today after Sacrament Meeting brought back a whole flood of emotions that took me by surprise. It's been 42 years since Ruth sang in her first Mother's Day primary chorus and that's how I am feeling now. 

I have so loved being a father and even at an age where many are retiring, parenting a two year old and a three year old is an indescribable joy. I am so blessed to have a wife who feels exactly the same about this, and am thankful that these two boys have come into our lives. 

I'm sure that at each milestone that Evan and Aiden go through, especially in the Church, this flood will reoccur. I'm glad.

The cycle is complete

I didn't realize that it had been so long since I posted to my blog.

It has been a VERY long year for us. I was laid off from my job in Spokane on May 31, 2012, and it didn't take me very long to find a new job, but that job was across the country in New Haven, Connecticut. Almost exactly a year ago, August 4, 2012, I took off in my red Jetta for New Haven to work for NCR corp.

That job was supposed to be a three month contract-to-hire, meaning that at the end of the three months if everyone was happy I would become a full-time permanent employee with NCR.

Well eight months later it still hadn't happened, and in fact they terminated my contract. NCR is not doing all that well, IMHO, they being a hardware company in an increasingly non-hardware-oriented world.

A week later I had another job lined up, this time in Boca Raton, Florida. Back in my red Jetta and another three month contract-to-hire with Verio, a big internet hosting and services company.

The three months went by and they hired me! So I found us an apartment and Sally started to get ready to move here. That process (including moving her mother to Salt Lake City) is a whole saga in and of itself, but she finally got on the road in a U-Haul truck, stopped in Pocatello Idaho to pick up our daughter Amanda (who did the lion's share of the driving), and headed east.

Five LONG days later they pulled into the apartment complex at 4:30 am. At 9:00 am the eight missionaries assigned to our ward arrived and in 20 minutes we had the whole truck emptied.

So here we are, living alone for the first time in the eleven years (as of last Saturday) of marriage. It is truly wonderful to be together again, and to not be responsible for anyone other than ourselves. We have already had the time and the freedom (from interruptions) to talk about the kinds of things couples need to talk about - their past, their future, and what's on the menu for the next week.

As for my little red Jetta, it died as I pulled into Boca Raton. I managed to limp along with it until I got my first paycheck, at which point I traded it in on a hot red 2013 Passat.

Conference Memories

I hope I haven't blogged this before.

I'm in my first General Conference session in Connecticut. Since I don't have Internet access in my little apartment I have come to the church building to watch.

Being in the Eastern time zone we are offset by two hours from Utah. So our sessions are 12-2, 4-6 and 8-10.

This reminds me vividly of General Conference in my mission field. It was April of 1968 and I was assigned to labor in the city of Geneva. The Mission Home was close and we were all invited to listen to Conference on WNYW, short wave rebroadcast at 2:00 am.

This was only my fourth General Conference since my baptism in September of 1967.

I was so impressed that my Mission President (grandson of Joseph Fielding Smith) and his wife (granddaughter of LeGrand Richards) knew all of the General Authority speakers just by hearing the first few words they spoke.

I don't remember what was said that day but I do remember the feelings I had as we sat around that radio.

Today reminds me of that.

Journey, Day 8

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Today is the day! It was an easy drive, comparatively speaking, from Rhinecliff to West Hartford. I wanted to go there first because Bob Pearce, my best friend from high school many years ago, and his wife Trudy live there.

I probably should have called first, but I wanted to surprise him. It typical Bob fashion, he just took it all in stride.

We have not seen each other, though we have talked, for over 10 years. At that time, after Mildred had died and when I was first getting to know Sally, I flew to State College (well not exactly, but David and April picked me up wherever it was that I flew into) and we drove to West Hartford and stayed with Bob and Trudy.

The next day was Agnès' wedding in the Boston Temple. West Hartford is only about two hours from the temple and they were very gracious to let us sack out there that night.

The next day we travelled to Boston, did the wedding, then came back to West Hartford. On Sunday I was taking the train to Chicago to meet up with Sally, but there was time to go to New Haven and go to church there. Here I am 10 years later, in that same ward!

I sat and talked with Bob for a while, then got back on the road for New Haven.

I had talked to the Bishop down there a few times and he had recommended a small studio apartment that one of his members had recently vacated. I made arrangements with the landlord to look it over, and it only took me 5 minutes to know that it was just right for my needs. I spent the rest of the day moving stuff out of the car and shopping for what I needed.

Journey, Day 7

Friday, August 10, 2012

Today was my Whoops Day, the day I built into my schedule just in case things when wrong somewhere. So instead of pushing on to New Haven I took the day off and spent it with Paul and Melina. Paul had taken the day off from work.

Frankly, we didn't do a whole lot. Paul had made me a dentist's appointment in Kingston to get my flipper fixed, and the 45 minutes they quoted us when I checked in turned into an hour and 45 minutes. And cost me $100.

They wanted to charge me $200 to fix the silly thing, but I talked them down.

Meanwhile Paul and Melina did their weekly shopping. The Kingston Bridge is a toll bridge, so they only go there when scheduled. The alternative would be to drive down to Poughkeepsie, and it's hardly worth that trip.

After that we dropped Melina at home and Paul and I went out to a you-pick farm. They weren't technically open that day, but the farmer had some real nice fruit in the cooler that he sold us. I got white peaches.

Paul had been planning a barbecue for that evening, but because it had been raining off and on all day he settled for cooking inside. After dinner we played a couple of games of Rummikub and went to bed.

Journey, Day 6

Thursday, August 9, 2012

I'm really tired, but this should be a short leg, just 5 hours. 

Pennsylvania is very green and very pretty and the landscape continues on into New York.

Out of State College I got back on I-84 toward New York. Just as 84 would have crossed the Hudson River and headed towards Hartford, I got off it and headed north along the river. Then at Kingston I crossed over and took a short jog south to Rhinecliff.

Rhinecliff is part of the bigger Rhinebeck and is absolutely gorgeous. The whole Hudson Valley is that way and Rhinecliff is basically just a whistle stop along the way, forgotten by the hustle and bustle of the modern mall.

Paul and Melina live in a very old home just a 5-minute walk from the train station.

Journey, Day 5

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Today was planned to be a lot easier, it's not so far from Ann Arbor to State College.  A quick trip down to Toledo, then across Ohio and half of Pennsylvania. Again, had I not been pressed for time I would have loved to stop by Pittsburgh and see my family there. But I pushed in.

Now David and family had left Houston for State College just about the same time I left Spokane, Saturday the 4th.  So when we (Mary and Alyson came with me) got there, they were still trying to figure out which box had what in it.

Still, it was nice to spend time with them, as it had with everyone else on the trip.