Meet Our Girls

I told you we were proud of Laura and Isabel. Both of them are much smarter that their grandparents. They go to school together, they are even in the same class together. On Valentines Day, they had a dance at school.

The two girls were in their poodle skirts having a great time. I heard tell that they had a great time dancing with boys. Oh, no, it has started already!

Another Revolution - Books?

A couple of nights ago, we visited Shon and Melinda at their home to take Valentines over. Isabel knew a secret and she was holding out on us. It took talking to Laura this morning to find out she wasn't the only one who put together a website for History Fair. Isabel's was about how the printing press changed the world. It taught me just how revolutionary the ability to read what I want really is.

Two of our granddaughters in the same class, each working on their own website, and both doing such a great job. We couldn't be prouder. (is that a word?) Maybe this blog is revolutionary..... HMMM!

Here is the link to Isabel's website
Another Revolution - Books?

A Revolution in the Skies

 Our granddaughter Laura has entered the History Fair, following in her mother's footsteps, with a treatise on Nikolaus Copernicus and his heliocentric model of the solar system. Instead of doing this the old way with posterboards and charts, or in a presentation, she has created a website. She amazes us with her abilities and grown-up understanding of complex topics. She has taught herself how to set up this website.

To see what she has done, click on the link below. You will be as impressed as we are, but you won't be half as proud as we are. Congratulations Laura!

The Copernican Model: A Revolution in the Skies

Maui Princess Chelane

Surveying the realm of her underwater kingdom, Maui Princess Chelane poses for the camera with her tiara still in place under the sea. On her first dive in Maui, Chelane was invited to go on a ladies only princess dive. We dropped her off in the dark at the dive boat where she was given a royal princess greeting and from there on, she was waited on hands and feet (literally). One of the dive masters painted her toenails with the red and white dive insignia. She did not need to do any work with this dive and she ate food fit for a queen (sort of). Who would have ever thought Chelane would enjoy a princess party, much less wear a tiara! You've come a long way, baby since the last princess party when you were nine at Mara Winegar's. And, Oh! what sea green eyes you have!

Chelane made friends with two other local girls from the dive and went out again later for a shore dive at an old collapsed pier. After a visit from old street bum who wanted to watch them get ready, they headed off into the ocean to explore some more. We had taken Chelane a couple of places to watch turtles, but with minimal success. After this shore dive, she said we needn't bother with that anymore. She made friends with one of her subjects while touring her underwater kingdom.

Are You My Mommy?

 From time to time I see my Mom in the strangest places. I was watching TV once in London. That's a hoot!, but that's another story. I was surprised to see my own mother being interviewed on a news documentary that was made in the US, but was being aired in London. Well, she has done it again. Yesterday's SL Tribune had an article written by MY MOM! Here it is reprinted without permission. She is my Mom, I think it's OK

DOING RIGHT BY DOWNWINDERS

by Darlene Phillips

I am a survivor of the Cold War. While many of the major monuments of that war are gone, the results of our country’s engagement in the tense conflict can still be found in the form of thyroid cancer, lymphoma, and other illnesses resulting from the radioactive fallout that accompanied our nation’s nuclear weapons testing program.

While working at Bryce Canyon National Park in the 1950s, I watched as the bombs exploded over the horizon. I had no idea that some of the more than 12 billion curies of radioactivity that were being released into the atmosphere would find their way from the Nevada Test Site into my home. I would never have guessed that the radioactive iodine would make its way into the milk I ingested, and that the accompanying iodine 131, cesium-137 and strontium-90 would invade not only my garden vegetables, but also my body’s soft tissue, my teeth, my bones.

Watching those nuclear bombs light up a southern Utah dawn, I never imagined that the tests, meant to deter the Soviet Union, would instead eradicate my immune system.

Last month, the U.S. Senate decided to honor downwinders by declaring Jan. 27 a national day of remembrance for victims of nuclear weapons testing. In 1990, the U.S. Congress, led by Utah’s Sen. Orrin Hatch and Rep. Wayne Owens, voted to pass the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. RECA, as it came to be called, drew a strict boundary around southern Utah counties, declaring that compensation would be available only to downwinders within those politically fashioned boundaries.

According to RECA’s map, someone living in Davis or Salt Lake counties, which received the 25th and 27th highest exposure to fallout among all counties in the nation, would not be eligible for compensation to help cover the devastating expenses of medical treatment for fallout-related illnesses.

At the same time, a downwinder suffering in Wayne County (which ranked 81st for exposure) would receive full compensation for medical expenses for the same diseases.

While fallout quite naturally didn’t adhere to existing political boundaries, compensation has adhered strictly to political boundaries. A 2005 congressional report from the Committee on Government Reform found that “radiation-associated cancer is actually more common in counties where residents are excluded from compensation than in those counties where residents are included under RECA law.”

For decades, downwinders have been fighting for adequate compensation to cover health costs resulting from fallout exposure. Finally, a group of bipartisan Western senators, recognizing this injustice, introduced legislation to expand RECA to all counties in Western states where significant amounts of fallout were detected.

Whatever compensation may eventually become available is already too late. Many downwinders are no longer with us.

While it’s commendable that this Friday, Jan. 27, be set aside as a day of remembrance for downwinders, remembering isn’t enough. We must do more. Sens. Hatch and Mike Lee of Utah should support the expansion of RECA to the entire state.

While remembering the victims of past nuclear weapons tests, we must also protect the health and safety of future generations by ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. It’s long past time for the dangerous practice of nuclear weapons testing, which poisoned so many, to be rendered obsolete, relegated to its place in history among such other Cold War relics as the Berlin Wall.

Darlene Phillips has spent 35 years of her life as a research patient for the National Institutes of Health in a program aimed at understanding the effects of radioactive fallout on the human immune system. She lives in Bountiful.

Pretty Cool!, Don't you think?

"They dwell and abide on the rock"

Imagine our surprise on Thanksgiving Day when our children chose this opportunity to honor their parents. This holiday came pretty close to our 40th wedding anniversary. The kids gathered up rocks and placed them in a basket. Each rock carried the name of someone we love - and each one wrote a card expressing why they were thankful for us. They chose a scripture from Job that was used to describe the dwelling place of eagles. What an honor to have our children rejoice in having been raised in a home based on the rock of our salvation, even Jesus Christ. We tried hard to make our home a "strong place", a house of learning , a house of prayer and a home of love.

The inscription at the doorway to our house, placed in the concrete when the porch was formed, says" This Home is built on a foundation of love - May the Good Lord bless all who enter". That foundation has ever been a strength to our family. The kids chose the rock theme also because Janene and I met while looking for fossils in the mountains east of Coalville. Who knew there would be so many rocks in our basket?

We had a semi-large group here for Thanksgiving dinner, but we missed those who weren't here. Some who could not come, came later for dessert (including Heather's banana cream pie).

Our home is often full of family and friends. What a blessing for us to have this great family!

And no, Stephen, even though there was lots of the bubbly stuff, I did not partake!

Blowin' In The Wind

 Do you remember this house?  This was the Extreme Makeover House that was built in one week. This week, our hurricane force winds toppled two trees onto it.

 Our neighbors, the Park and the Carbiener families had a whole forest come down on them. Park's lost about six big trees and Carbiener's lost about ten big trees. Several landed on their homes causing big damage.

 The Anderson's new car was buried by their blue spruce.

 Many of the trees fell on power lines, killing the power. Bountiful City said every home in Bountiful lost power. Some, like Shon lost power for four days when trees took out their power lines.

 You know the wind is strong when it blows stoplights off their poles. I wonder what you can see from that webcam.

 This used to be a stately pine tree at the Lemmon's. We gathered up the tree trunk and took it to Heather's house for firewood. Heather's car window was smashed by falling debris.

 One of our neighbors described his street as a war zone. That was before the Toland's roof blew off and seven other trees fell on his short street. The Schnebly family was out of town. Won't they be surprised when they find their shed in a different place.

 Our friends, the Gerbers, lost their pine trees in the front yard. Who knows what they lost in the back yard.

 Samuelson's were awakened by the crash of a big pine on their roof.

 So may trees came down here, that even after they were cleaned up, the road was mostly blocked.

 While I was helping the Stats family with their tree, we watched as the Groberg's tree came crashing down blocking all of 400 East.

 The saddest thing was what happened at the cemetery.

 Big trees that were a hundred years old or more were uprooted, smashing some grave markers and dislodging others.

 So sad!

 When I first moved to Bountiful, I walked past the cemetery every day on my way to South Davis Junior High. I had never seen wind blow like it did here, but I could always count on shelter behind the cemetery's big pines.

 The snow drifted everywhere - but behind the big trees. Now they are all gone

 Here is a Chopper 5 picture of a job I had bid on in Farmington. Now I am glad I didn't get that job. I wonder if the general contractor makes all the subcontractors pay for the damage themselves.

 On Sunday, they let us out of church early, even though it was Stake Conference and we had visiting general authorities, to go help our neighbors clean up. One of the places we hauled storm debris was to a temporary "dump" at Bountiful High School. Look closely. That is my truck at the bottom of the picture.

Private companies helped by providing heavy equipment to help. We had about 250 people helping from our ward. This was repeated all over Davis County. Our bishop said this was a week he would never forget. We had work crews out within an hour of the start of the damage cutting down trees, running temporary power to homes and fixing roofs. The storm came Thursday morning and by Sunday afternoon, the cleanup which Bountiful City estimated would cost the city 20 million dollars had largely been accomplished by ordinary citizens with pickup trucks, and home trailers. Oh, the lines to get to the dump!

We learned a lot of lessons from this experience that will help us in case this ever happens again. We were fortunate that we still had natural gas and phone service. I hate to think what things would be like if we had the big one and lost access to those utilities. It was kind of nice to have a nice hot (albeit, dark) shower after a long cold day cutting up trees and running power lines.

It all started when I was only 14......

Science fair nerd - look closely, there is a pocket protector under that sweater. It was 8th grade, and I had just finished demonstrating my machine I made to measure the specific gravity of minerals. I thought it was a pretty cool project. I don't think I won any awards.

Enter the most beautiful girl in the world. I first saw her at an assembly at South Davis Jr. High. She sang a solo up on the big stage. I was at the back of the auditorium. How could anyone sing like that! My heart went aflutter, but she was a big ninth grader. Gorgeous, smart and no less than a rock star. She was out of my league. There was no use in even thinking about it. Even in a dream.

Fast forward one year. I couldn't believe what was happening to me. Here I was. Still every bit the nerdy kid, but I was sitting next to that girl from the assembly. We had really only met a month earlier. Of all things, my obsession with rocks and minerals had brought us together on top of a mountain where we were finding fossilized oyster shells. Here we were in Southern Utah, having just spent an evening on the banks of Duck Creek, where I first held her hand on a moonlit night under a starry sky.  It doesn't get much more romantic than that.

I went home from that summer science class and everything in my life was turned upside down. I had a girlfriend! When I got home, I went downstairs where Mom was ironing clothes and told her I thought I had found the girl I was going to marry. I can't imagine what my mother thought. I was only 15! You don't find your future wife at that age.

All through high school, I was in heaven. We would meet between classes and walk hand in hand to our lockers. The principal had to break us up a few times. He also insisted that I tuck in my shirt, but that is another story.

The next year, we took the summer science class again, I think just so that we would have an excuse to be together during the summer break. When I wasn't with her, we were on the phone. With the cord stretched across the house, we would each talk for hours, all while hiding in the closet. Janene's dad would not be too happy about that and tell her to get off the phone. They had a party line and other neighbors couldn't use the phone when we were on. What did we talk about? It didn't matter...... I just wanted to hear her voice and couldn't bear to be "disconnected" from her.

Head over heels - crazy in love. I was the luckiest guy in the world. It would make a great movie script. Geeky boy meets the beauty queen. They fall in love. The beauty queen falls in love with the nerd. Doesn't it just bring a tear to your eye? It does to me ... of course, what doesn't.

Almost as soon a I was out of high school (Janene was a college girl at SUSC, majoring in Geology) we got married in Cedar City. When we came back from our honeymoon, our parents held a reception for us. My grandfather was my best man. It was probably a little awkward for our parents, but I will always be grateful they did it for us. Our honeymoon was paid for by my Dad. He loaned us his Phillips 66 credit card. Otherwise, our little trip to Zion National Park would have been entirely out of our reach.

Working at the restaurant for $1.35 an hour was no way to support a family, so by the time Shon was born two years later, I had switched careers into the fire protection business. Those were lean years. We ate leftover food from the restaurant and put gas in the car two dollars at a time. When we ran out of money at the end of the pay period, it was heartbreaking to know that several dollars of gas was just sitting in the gas tank. Still, I was married to my best friend, and money really didn't matter. We were able to buy our first home only because of a government program to encourage poor people to buy a home and made it possible. Our first house payment was $70 a month.

Within one year of buying our first home together, we were off the government subsidy. I had a union job that paid pretty well and we could afford to put money down on our new property in Bountiful. By the time Heather was born, we had moved into our dream home that we built ourselves with my kid brother. I was 24 years old. I had the trophy wife, the dream home and three incredible children. I was living the dream that Janene and I had talked about since we first started talking about marriage in my junior year of high school

The biggest change in our lives came when we moved to Bountiful. Here I found the blessing of membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We took our little family to the Salt Lake Temple and were sealed for all eternity. We also started expanding our family reach as we added first Lisseth, and later, Doug to our family group.

The next years were a whirlwind of car pools, science fair projects, (our kids won several awards, unlike their father), and swim meets (more awards). As the proud parents of a beautiful family, the nerd was overworked. The beauty queen was constantly sleep deprived, had been pregnant eleven times, but was still as radiant as ever. We all were devastated when David died at the Grand Canyon, but we took strength from the knowledge that we are an Eternal Family, and always will be.

Now it has been 40 years since our first wedding night. Our hair is getting gray, our bodies ache sometimes, but I still am always with the smartest, most beautiful girl in the room. There have been times when things haven't gone too smoothly, There have been times when we each thought we could not bear the thought of another day, but through it all, that first crazy love has never dimmed. I am still head over heels in love with my best friend.

 
Even though our love has matured, we have grandchildren, (even great-grandchildren  when you count Lisseth's and Doug's grandkids), I still feel the same way I did when I first held Janene's hand at Duck Creek under a starlit sky. Twitterpated, indeed.  I am the luckiest guy in the whole world.

Family Night with the Spooks

Shon and Melinda came over with all their kids to help us carve pumpkins for the holiday. Most of us had our own pumpkins to work on. Some of us put elaborate designs together, while others just "dug" in.

One of the punkins was really a big orange gourd..... with a rock hard shell and lots of warts. Ping tried to cut off the top and broke two knives off. We decided a sawzall was the proper tool for this obstinate vegetable.

Here is Ping with the completed ghouls. Notice the guy with the big pumpkin ears.

Haiyan had to get Jake to help her get her masterful carving out onto the porch.

What a frightening sight to behold!

Spooks and goblins galore!

Spooks and goblins revealed by the camera flash! It was a regular Addams Phillips Family Halloween. Our fiends from China loved every minute of it. Ha! Ha!