And so it all begins anew...

So there you have it. Spring has come early this year. This is the earliest we have ever been able to plant our garden. There are still a few snowbanks, but the soil is warm and ready for planting. We know this is Utah, so only the hardiest of plants can go in the ground this early, but that means a lot of things can be planted. It is just in time, too. We just either used up or threw out the last of the winter squash and pulled up the last of the carrots. From now until the rhubarb is ready to pick, we will have to live on store-bought produce. Spring has sprung!

Super-Laura-Rabulistic-Milonga-Lupercalia

A late night visit to the high school auditorium this week found Laura competing in the county-wide spelling bee. Janene had been there all night when there had been forty six contestants. By the time I got there, the pack was narrowed down to about ten, and the administrators had gone "off list", meaning that they were giving the kids words that they had not studied and that nobody except my mother had ever heard or used. As each child was disqualified, their family packed up their belongings and left the hall. I had walked into an auditorium with only a scattering of occupants, Janene and Angie sitting on the floor in the rear watching the rest of Laura's siblings.

We were all excited as Laura made it to the final round with only two contestants. They each had to spell two words correctly with no errors to be able to crowned the victor. My heart sank as she misspelled "milonga" (a dance related to the tango). It didn't help that the pronouncer flubbed the pronunciation. The young man who was competing against her also missed his word, so the race was on again. Laura clinched the competition with the word "Lupercalia", a word she recognized by it's Greek origin. In the  end, it was hard to recognize it as a competition with only three or four families interspersed in a room that holds two thousand.

 Laura will tell you she didn't study for this, but her voracious reading habits and understanding of three languages  most likely prepared her well for the experience. She walked away with another scholarship ($3000.00) and a gift basket filled with $400 in gift certificates and tickets. Sam said "Wow, she won't even have to pay for college" as he added up the previous scholarship in his mind. It won't be too long and Sam (he who read all of Harry Potter when he was five or six) will be filling her shoes.

Just Lion Around!

It is amazing to me how a two-year old can do the same thing for hours and never tire. Tyler brought me this lion's head costume and put it on my head. "You're a lion, Gwampa - You should growl". We spent the next half an hour (at least) with him putting the lion head on me and then expecting to be growled at and eaten. He laughed hysterically, even though he had just gotten through doing the same thing. By the time he went home, I was one tired (and hoarse) lion.

Plumbing Parts - To the Rescue!

Remember my broken shift lever on my truck? With a little bit of glue and a small piece of 1-1/4" drain pipe, I was able to fix it. A little bit of chrome to accessorize my vehicle. Pretty Cool!

Postdeluvian Carnage

I realized with the last blog that I mentioned The Flood, but never wrote about it in our blog. It all started with a Sunday night noise in the garage. The compressor was running for no apparent reason. It was about dinner time when I went out to check why. I opened the door to the compressor room, couldn't see a reason why, and shut off the breaker. I would check it out the next day after work. Later that same night, Janene saw a mouse in the garage, so she opened the door to let it out. Then we went to bed.

I was awakened at about 3:30 AM to the sound of "KaTink"! It sounded for all the world like someone was smacking a metal pipe. No worries- the house always makes sounds. At 4:00 AM, heard another "KaTink"! This time I thought for sure it was a pipe so I got up. There was no water upstairs in the sinks or toilets. I knew that meant we had some frozen pipes, so I went downstairs to investigate. The garage was freezing cold, the door was open,the door to the compressor room was open too, and I could tell the pipe shaft to upstairs was a lot colder than it should be. I grabbed an electric heater and put it in the garage(after closing the door) thinking that if things got warmer the pipes would thaw. Now, to get back to bed. ZZZZ!

 Janene dreamed that she had done something wrong with a computer and was now in trouble with the police. She was trying to find a lawyer before I found out about the terrible thing she had done, and that woke her up. She went downstairs and discovered water spraying out of the wall, with a flap of sheetrock
modulating the spray just like a rainbird and it was "watering" our living room garden! Furniture and all.

 We went downstairs and discovered that it was raining in the basement and a lake had formed downstairs.

 We found two more places where pipes had burst and had to cut two more holes in the wall to get to them. One hole was right behind our lawn sprinkler timer, so that was all messed up.

 Our food storage room was full of water, but luckily, most of the important stuff was up off the floor.

 In our storage room where all the kid's stuff is stored, we had water everywhere. Again, luckily the worst of the damage was to the 7 tons of National Geographics we have stored in the basement. Most everything else was up off the floor.

 The furnace did not fare so well. The furnace was full of water pouring into it from the ductwork upstairs. We could hear electrical buzzing and arcing sounds coming from the furnace. I had to think twice about stepping into the water in my bare feet to get to the shutoff valve. In the end, a lot of the furnace controls needed to be replaced before we could get the heat back on. That meant propane heaters, electric space heaters and a full fire in the fireplace on a red burn day. We had to call disaster cleanup and HVAC guys to help us out. We also had to call in Brother Tolman to fix the plumbing and Larry to fix the electrical.

The culprits ended up being the three "KaTink" pipes that burst in the night and then sprayed water once they  thawed out. Even with all this damage, it was not near so bad as the trouble Janene had dreamed herself into - and that made it easier for her to bear. So the moral of the story is never leave the door to the compressor open  and don't be afraid to let a mouse share in the warmth of our happy (and heated) home.

Super Bowl Free-for-All - with good food!

With our home still torn apart from the flood and with furniture pushed out of the living room, we were not so sure that a houseful of grandchildren was going to be a really good idea. As it turned out, Super Bowl Sunday was a great night to have a lot of the kids over. We couldn't get the Super Bowl on the TV so we spent time with kids and grandkids instead. We had a paper airplane air war with some of the pilots launching their craft from the loft and others climbing the stairs and the furniture to retrieve theirs. Joseph commented that he liked what we had done with the room - it seemed so much more open. The little ones took advantage of the open space by learning to do flips and somersaults. There was even a fair amount of jogging going on.

I think if it wasn't for the flood, we would never have allowed the kids to have such a good time. There is something about coming downstairs to seeing a "rainbird" targeting all your living room furniture, hardwood and carpet that makes a few thirty pound kids walking on your living room couch seem not so bad. We had a good time; they had a good time; and, as Janene said after the kids went home, - somehow this home that is filled with love seems to recover just fine.

Venturing Above the Smog

 Finally, we got a break from the smog and bitter cold this year. As we look out over the valley, we can see that, for the most part, we are above the thick brown layer the government warns us is"unhealthy". Janene and I took off again and went snowshoeing. This time we went a little farther. At the start, the sky was pretty impressive with the criss-cross contrails.

 Later when we got to the Salt Lake side of the trail, it was hard to even be able to see what was under that thick layer of guck. I wonder if this is what Brigham Young saw when he looked over the valley?

 When we looked toward home, it was amazing to see the terraces cut by the CCC corps in the 1930's. When you think of how big an area they terraced, and that it was all done by hand with picks and shovels, it really makes you stop and think what a big effort this was. No one in their right mind would even think of sending people out to do this by hand now. They would hire a contractor with some heavy equipment and a few people would be employed - not thousands. That is probably why big public works projects wouldn't really affect the unemployment rate nowadays.

I still find it amazing that we can do this so close to home and be up in the mountaintops like this. We were out for a long time before we even saw another person. We live in a pretty good place.

Ford - Fix or Repair Daily

 So, my truck has a shift lever like every other vehicle with an automatic transmission. You are supposed to use it to shift into gear and (especially) into Park. Mine even has a nifty little switch to put the transmission into overdrive that's pretty cool.

But what are you supposed to do when the thing breaks off in your hand when you shift (with your crippled arm, even)? I got on line and found out that people think you need to replace the entire shift lever - which requires removing the steering wheel and column. I couldn't believe that, so I went to the Ford dealer. They said this happens all the time and yes, you do have to replace the entire shift lever. Oh, and by the way, "we don't stock that item- you have to special order it". Here is my question. If this happens all the time, why don't you have one in stock? All of this comes after I just had to spend over $100.00 to replace a defective battery that was under warranty.  Maybe I will just start walking to work. I think I could have gotten there faster walking after the slow commute today anyway. Arggh!

Papa's Ghost Towns

Papa's Ghost Towns

By Heather Phillips Kearl

It's fitting that Papa should be like them so

He brings us here searching, year after year

With their yawning doorways and supporting beams,

the old houses preserve a peaceful silence

like a dream of smoothly ebbing streams

or dark shadows, moving forward

 The silence fills each room, so compressed

its dark wispy shapes pool on the peeling paper

 I am lost, but complete as the silence swallows me

surrounding me in its flurry of memories

The house knows all; it's always alert,

full of treasures, knowledge and respect

when on first glance it seemed so bare

 He spends every day, constructing new homes,

showy and grand, then hands them,

like a newborn child, to parents longing for such.

 Yet,

just now, as I stand amidst the broken glass,

splintered wood, and peaceful completion,

I understand why he's so much at home

Poem by my daughter

Photographs by Janene

Sometimes it seems that it takes a daughter's insight to be able to understand who I am.

Still Keeping a Promise

Remember last March? I wrote about keeping a promise to keep my office organized. Here it is a year later and this is my report . My office still looks fairly organized - I have a bunch more drawings in the plan files, but otherwise it looks pretty good. After a year, I can report that it has become a habit. There are a few days of uncontrolled chaos, but it is almost always cleaned up on Wednesdays and Fridays when the cleaning crew comes in.

The Joy of Being "BWAMPA"

There are just a few blessings that come from getting old. One of them is the joy of having grandkids. I remember how fascinated I was with my grandfathers, both of whom were pretty famous in my way of thinking. My Grandpa Morton could be seen on Saturday afternoons on a TV show called "Bold Journey" where he narrated some of his adventure movies. My Grandpa Phillips could be seen in the Salt Lake Tribune walking his dog around the block - on his unicycle, no less. We could also take the kids to the circus to see him and the rest of the Shriner Clowns entertaining the crowds between acts.

I will have to share some of those experiences later, but I love the voice messages I get from my grandkids. They cover everything from potty training to first encounters with the Tooth Fairy. Lately, some of my grandsons have taken an interest in rocks and minerals. We have retrieved boxes and boxes of rocks Janene and I have collected in our travels, but mostly during the time when we both studied Geology at the U and during the summer science classes that first brought us together. Bit by bit our rock collection is leaving our house and going down two generations to these little boys.

It is funny to think of myself as "BWAMPA". I still think of myself as the little fascinated grandson.

What to do? What to Say?

Well, Christmas presented (no pun intended) me with a dilemma. My sister gave me a nice wooden candle holder with a votive candle inside. I really liked the thing, especially the wording on the front, but I have sworn off real candles in the home after our almost catastrophic melt down a few years ago. (see A Cautionary Holiday Tale) I didn't want to disappoint my sister and just haul it off to DI. I didn't want to re-gift it either, since that would just possibly burn down someone else's home. So after a little thought, I found the perfect place for it on my drafting desk at work. It now holds all my stuff for marking plans and doing takeoffs. I can see it everyday and remember the thoughtfulness of a beloved sister.

Sorry, Sis. I did have to send the votive candle to the landfill.

Using Last Year's Christmas Presents

SNOWSHOEING NEAR HOME!!!

 Today Janene and I finally started using our Christmas presents from Santa last year. We took off this morning and went snowshoeing on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail near our home. While it was smoggy down in the valley, it was brightness and sunshine in the mountains. We saw a few people on the trail, but not as many as many as you might expect for being so close to home.

 Pretty soon, we were overlooking the Salt Lake Valley from high above the valley. We got to see a view of Salt Lake that you don't see everyday. It might have been a really good view if it had been a clear day, but we could pick out a few landmarks.

 We sat down for a while and had a lunch of oranges and hot water (we found that if you keep a bottle of water in your coat pocket, it will get very warm) just below the radio and microwave towers. I learned how to take a picture of ourselves with a cell phone just like all the tourists do.

The view on the way back was outstanding! We passed a few springs where animals hung out even in the winter. We had a great time and enjoyed the freedom of being able to get out of doors on a cold wintery day. We will be doing this again. Next time, I will bring the good camera and tripod. We may even try this on a moonlit night.

A Phillips Family Christmas

The sounds of our unique version of the 12 Days of Christmas can only mean one thing. It must be Christmas Eve again in the Phillips home. I used to think that the children only "tolerated" this tradition as a necessary means to an end - that end being the trip downstairs to open presents. I think they all actually enjoy this version of the song my mother wrote that we sing every Christmas Eve.

 Of course, we always get to have a light meal together (love that Morton Family chip dip) and get to spend a little time together before the festivities start

 I am always amazed at how much our girls (we have so few of them) enjoy just being together. Lily looks up to and admires Elsie. Isabel and Laura just carry on where they left off as school classmates. They always seem to have some kind of inside joke or story going on that only they understand.

 The boys, on the other hand, are always just a wee bit on the rambunctious side. Caleb and Ben were so excited that they could hardly stand still.

 But stand still they did when it was time to read the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke. My father used to be the one to read from the Bible. Now that torch has passed on to me and it is a great honor to fill my father's shoes. This was the first year that I was able to do so without a few tears. We turned out the lights, lit the Christmas candles, and symbolically let the Light of Christ into our lives, as we sang Christmas hymns and ended with Silent Night.

 We all enjoyed that precious moment as we pondered the Son of God coming to earth, bringing the great gift of the Atonement and Resurrection. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever should believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16) Our family has been greatly blessed by the peace our understanding of that greatest of all gifts brings to our lives.

 And then .... The next day was Christmas Day! Among all the craziness were Belgian Waffles, the Christmas ham, stockings, and goodies and more gifts. By the time the whole family left to return to their own homes, we were just stuffed. Stuffed with good food, good cheer, great joy and tender memories.

Every year, Janene and I usually run so hard and do so much that we don't even get to sit down and enjoy the lights of the Christmas tree. This year, with my surgery, I couldn't run so hard. It may be that it was worse this year having to watch my bride struggle with all the things I usually do. Things like putting up the tree (she did it with Chelanes's help), tearing it down again to fix the lights, then putting it back up again with the help of other children. Things like baking bread and goodies for all our friends and family (well to be truthful, I'm not usually much help there), and things like putting up the decorations and shoveling snow (Janene now runs a mean snowblower). Some of our neighbors call our house "The Christmas House". We like to think of it as a home that is just stuffed with life and love. Truly, as the inscription reads at our front door, the Good Lord has blessed all who enter our home.

Service Night 2012

 Angie invited our whole family to a night of service at her happy Christmas home in the mountains. As snow fell silently outside, we enjoyed a fun dinner and then got to work preparing missionary packages for Tiffany, Mary and our friend Judy. Every child made something special for all our girls serving across the country.

 We also prepared a gift basket for a family in need. Janene and I waited at the Post Office early this morning (only the busiest day of the year). Actually, I sat in the car while Janene jockeyed for the first place in line. Look at who is on her way to being a teenager!

 No more baby bellies here! Instead, the twins from different mothers (not really so different) had fun together. It looks like next year we may have two more babies to show off that will be about the same age. One of the moms was not able to be with us because of morning, noon and night sickness. We all missed Shon & Mel and their family, but they had a company party the same night on top of pregnancy sickness. Get better! And of course, Chelane had to work with her week on - week off schedule.

 Holiday hat night as the kids gathered around the TV to watch a Christmas show. For some reason, the biggest kid would not wear a silly hat.

 This kind of thing reminds me of the times I used to spend on Christmas Eve with all my cousins. I love the bond that our grandkids all have with each other. Janene and I hope that they will always be close and share the love we have found in our family. I know the boys can't wait to get together and cause a little mayhem. Sometimes they get a little rough and one of them gets hurt, sometimes they even get their feelings hurt, but they always seem to get over it. Isabel and Laura have some of the same classes together in their junior high.
We all have our challenges, but I think our family is as close to perfect as they come!

Curiouser and Curiouser - Another Chapter in the Whodunit

EEEK!

OK, so I only do the laundry once in a whole week, and then, right before Janene comes home ( maybe she will sort and fold it that way) and what do I find? A surprise little critter! If it had died last Monday, we would have had a mess, but it turned out to be another prank from one of my offspring.

I have about narrowed it down now to one of Angie's family.The process of elimination leaves them as the only ones who could have had the opportunity. I still haven't figured out a motive, after all, why would they treat us so cruelly when we have been so loving and caring - even giving away our pumpkins to support their family night of carving.

I hope they feel guilty enough to confess and begin the path to repentance.

Oh, and just one more thing....

There is just one more thing, 

 Which one of my posterity was the one who left this present on my nightstand? I think it's going to take some real deductive powers to figure this one out.

Seventeen Spooks at our Home Tonight

 I got a fun surprise tonight as seventeen spooky grandkids showed up with their friend Kevin. They sent Kevin to the front door first. "Trick or Treat" I heard on the other side of the door. I opened the door, but the door hit Kevin (in a Darth Vader costume) in the hand and he fell over backwards, hitting his head on our concrete porch. It took me a little bit to figure out that Kevin was a dummy. Then, suddenly there were seventeen little ones who looked vaguely familiar filling our home.

 We all then headed over to my Dad & Mom's house where we found another ghoulish visitor. He almost looked like he could be Jake's older brother.

 He grabbed Elsie and I thought she was doomed, but it turned out he just wanted to dance.

 Pretty soon Elsie just melted into his animatronic arms. In the end, she figured out he didn't have a heart.

 Sam become his little little buddy after that.

Here is a group photo I was able to get of all of them. Ryan David had a Boy Wonder costume (dear to my heart. You can see all the others in their costumes. This may be the first time I have been able to get a picture of all of our grandkids at the same time. What a happy evening for a lonely dad.