Summer Vacation 2009

This summer, we took a trip to Utah. We started out in Cedar City, and while there did some fishing up at Navaho lake with Grandpa Gary. We also took a trip down to St. George to visit the Merrill's and see their now completed new house on the golf course.

After that, we went up to the Mormon Miracle Pagent with the Mathers and Zabriskies. We camped that evening at the Manti public park. There were a pair of baby hawkes in a tree next to our camping site. The mother hawk was swooping down and dive bombing us, and we finally figured out why. Kristi was a bit tramatized as you will see in the pictures on Picasa.

Next, we went to Provo, camping at the Provo KOA, and visiting with Grant and Bri. There was a nesting Malard Duck there that the kids quite enjoyed taking pics of, and got several close ups of the duck and eggs. We spent a day at the Seven Peaks water resort, then went to SLC and saw Temple Square, the new conference center, and ate lunch at the Lion House Pantry. We toured the Beehive House, Church Office Building, and the new Art Museum.

Then, it was on to Bear Lake and the July 4th family reunion there.

We returned home to find yellowing lawns, a flooded basement room, and several stolen DVDs from our collection. Some cash was also missing from Kristi's tithing bank.

Pictures are available at

Summer 2009

and

2009 07 - Family Summer Trip

No, no, don't let the rain come down

Summer is not yet over right? I mean, the kids go back to school next Wednesday, Seminary starts on Thursday, but we should have a few more days of nice sunny weather right?

I hope so, as the deck is partially sanded and prepped for painting, but our plan was to complete this on Labor day weekend. Well, here we are on Labor Day Weekend, and so far it is raining torrentially. The deck is soaked. It would take three days of dry sunshine to make the wood paintable again.

In fact, it rained so hard today that we discovered the rain gutters are plogged. You may not be familiar with the word plogged, so I'll define it here: plugged AND clogged, such as what happens to a rain gutter in the PNW when it gets a large damming chunk of pine needles, moss, and leaves stuck over the drain. This is such a great word -- http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=plogged. The plogs are by the master bedroom and again at the other end above the garage door. We had such a deluge today that in these two spots, it literally looked like someone was standing on the roof with a large bucket and dumping it over the roof. This would all be OK normally, and run off away from the house, except for the dumb bad luck of the plog (plug/clog/) occuring directly over the window well to Traci And AnnElise's room.

Did a light bulb just go on for you?

Well if you already know the story of the flood we faced in this room on our return from our summer vacation to Bear Lake, then it probably would have. We had thought prior to our discovery today, that the flood was due to over watering, as our neighbors had complained about our summer help watering the lawns too long while we were gone. Turns out, we had a couple of major rainstorms while we were out of town, and are now pretty sure we know where the flood water came from. Previously, there was a "perfect storm" set of circumstances of having both the rain gutter clogged AND the down spout drain in the window well clogged. While cleaning up from the flood on our return however, I had put a lot of time into cleaning debree out of that drain and making it functional again. In fact, the main plogging object was a hard croquet ball, which fit so tightly into the drain that I had to drill a hole into it and pull it out with the drill.

Thankfully, this maintenance paid off today, when the deludge hit again. The drain was able to keep up with the water being dumped off the roof, and water did not again rise over the level of the window, come down the inside walls, and cover the floor. We were REALLY glad it didn't too, for we had just completed the re-flooring of that bedroom with a nice hardwood laminate floor, and are still in the process of putting up the trim.

I really hope the rains go away for long enough to dry out and paint the deck. The weather here in Vancouver rarely cooperates with the best laid plans of mice and men however. Wish us luck!

Sunday Afternoon Musings

Just got through Skyping with my daughter Bri and her husband Grant. They live in Provo and have just gone back to school and completed the first week of the semester. Bri got a job on campus, so they are both working now, and both going to school full time, taking some of their classes together. Misti and I did this as well, taking classes together whenever possible. Saves on books, and gives a couple additional bonding time in a shared intellectual pursuit. I highly recommend it. They have already gotten their "summary of Summer" blog posted and this reminded me that it has been way to long since I posted anything.

In Priesthood meeting, at the end of the opening exercises where announcements are made and reports are given by each of the quorums, before all separate into their own groups for class instruction, we all repeat out loud the verses in D&C 84 that list the oath and covenant of the priesthood, which essentially promises the blessings of Eternal Life, or the kind of life God the father and Jesus Christ live, to faithful priesthood holders that magnify their callings. I remember when I was first being interviewed for the Aaronic Priesthood, as a 12 year old. The bishop asked if I knew the oath and covenant? I really didn't have a clue at that age what he was referring to. I am sure we had read these verses in Sunday School or Primary, but I really did not have any idea of their significance to the rest of my life as a holder of the priesthood. I think this ward's repeating of these verses on a weekly basis is a good thing.

Many men receive the priesthood, continuing on the path to Eternal Life they started with baptism, but do not magnify their callings over time. How well a man seeks out knowledge of his calling and current duties, and how he portrays that calling to others speaks volumes to his chances of eventual celestial glory. When seeking for a husband, my wife learned that how a return missionary spoke of his mission was a good indicator of their faithfullness to the gospel. Fortunately, I passed that test on our first date, speaking highly of my missionary experiences in England. Some callings may not seem important in the grand scheme of things, but I have learned over time, that there are no unimportant callings in God's kingdom. As Paul said, every member of the body is important. In the Missionary Training Center, there is a large monument with a placard which reads "what ere thou are, act well thy part". I know the Lord expects every priesthood holder to accept callings, and learn all they can from each one, performing each to the very best of their ability, and then moving on to new callings. I've never had a calling I didn't learn something from, or that I considered drudgery. There have certainly been callings that took a lot more time and effort than others, such as being an Elder's Quorum President in a young adult ward, where there was a literal "moving target" for hometeaching from month to month. Just going through the list of Elders and Perspective Elders and verifying that they still lived within the ward boundaries was a very daunting task that took the better part of a month for visits, phone calls, mail, etc. The do-not-contact list also needed to be verified, and also took quite a bit of time. However, I still remember both of these activities as some of the best times in my entire priesthood service. Through these efforts, we were literally seeking out the lost lambs, inviting many back to the fold, and considerably increased the attendance at our Young Single Adult ward in Henderson Nevada. I think I impacted more lives for good in the few months I was able to serve there, than on my mission to England.

Teach a man to fish . . .

and you'll feed him for a lifetime! Yes, him, and maybe his neighbors, hometeaching companion, local missionaries, hometeaching families, and any one else he can get to accept a few more fresh trout.

We have had much success in the local lakes on trout, and are now starting to focus on the more elusive steelhead (salmon fishing is restricted in our two local rivers due to low counts). I'm even thinking of trolling for some kokanee salmon in the lakes at the foothills of Mt. St. Helen's soon, but our next adventure will be float tubing with Rick and Jason at Kress Lake in Kalama, trolling flatfish lures and seeing if we can interest any of the HUGE steelhead that keep jumping while we've been catching limits of the smaller rainbow trout with the kids. Since we started fishing at Kress a couple of weeks ago we have caught 65 trout, limiting each time we go. They really have a lot of fish in that lake, but they are all pan size trout. We have smoked quite a few, and shared them till folks say they've had enough.

I also discovered Gorilla Tape (a much improved version of the gray duct tape we knew and loved as kids) on the last trip to BattleGround Lake, and it made a great repair on the broken motor mount pole (broken [I think] when Johnny tried to navigate the Sevylor raft OVER a large log submerged in Battleground lake). That was quite an adventure. Two kids on another raft had to come help us tip the motor up and get off the log that had lodged between the motor shaft and the back of the raft. I found that Sevylor is now owned by Coleman, and they are sending me out a new part to replace the broken one. Until then, Gorilla Tape, like Gorilla Glue, is holding things together. The old (and well ingrained) pioneer motto still applies: "Fix it up and wear it out, do with it or do without" Just like Dad, I have stock piles of "raw materials" to McGyver things with in the garage. To the untrained eye, they may look like piles of junk, but they just keep turning out to be useful here and there.

A Great Day - and a Tribute to My Mother

Yesterday (May 9) I had a really great day. Here's the story of what happened.

A week or so ago, my home teaching companion and good friend Jason called me up to let me know the Moose Lodge in Woodland was sponsoring a kids fishing event at Horseshoe lake. We try to attend as many of these kind of events as possible, so Johnny can experience the thrill of fishing while its easy (it helps him to focus more on the fishing when it is not as easy). When we got there, we found that the Jason's family were not there yet and called them. Turns out they had some car problems and needed to fix a few things before heading out.


At the event, they had rented a Johnny-jumper, one of those huge kids jumping inflatables, so Johnny spent the first 30 minutes or so getting lots of good exercise jumping with lots of other kids in that while we waited for Jason's family.

We also took a walk around the grounds to see what else they had there. There was a big moose sign (a background for pictures with your fish). There was a big pile of hay on a tarp in the middle of a field, and there were lots of brand new shiny bikes as prizes for the biggest fish in various age groups. Johnny sat on his favorite one.



We went to registration, and paid our two dollars for Johnny's fishing, and spent two dollars on tickets to the prize lottery drawing. Then we went for a walk on the beach by the non-event fishers, and found that they were doing pretty good as well.

We helped a young man dehook a fish he had just caught, and Johnny took pictures of a large dog on the beach by a fisherman (after asking permission). [By the way, if you look at the detailed view of this picture where I'm holding the fish, you can see my finger that's healing up from the fingernail removal surgery I had last week, that was a follow-up to the ingrown fingernail that resulted from cutting the right side of that finger off with the chainsaw (see "Neighbors and Chainsaws" story below for details of that event).]


At registration, they gave out tickets for a free kids meal at The Old Spaghetti Factory (Johnny charmed his way into an extra ticket!)

Jason's family finally showed up, and then the waiting began. There was a line to get a spot on the beach where the fish were penned up in a net about 15 feet from shore. Hardly even room to cast.





In fact, there was a full time boatman with a trolling motor helping free lines of kids that had cast OVER the net and buoy system. He was kept VERY busy.





The fish were not all that hungry (full moon the previous night), but Johnnie caught two within the first hour, then helped his friends catch theirs. Toward the last hour, they consolidated the fish by shortening the 150-foot beach to about 75 feet long. We caught the last of the 12 fish then. Switching to PowerBait instead of the supplied worms also help speed up the catch toward the end.



One of the fish Johnny caught was large by the day's standard, being about 8.5 inches long, rather than the 5 to 6 inches of most of the other fish caught. We got it measured and cleaned, as with the rest of the fish.

The hay pile turned out to be a coin hunt. For various age groups, the sponsors dumped $50 in loose change into the hay, then set the kids to searching for it. The kids had a blast digging through the hay to find each penny. It reminded me of a carp boil (when you toss bread into a school of carp and watch them fall all over themselves trying to get a piece).

Finally, they held the lottery drawing and we didn't win anything with our tickets. Jason had purchased 7 tickets, and won a razor scooter on one of them.

Its was about 2:30 PM and Johnnie and I were starving. We did an emergency run to McDonald's, then headed home.



The next event of the day was a trip to the Portland Temple with two of my daughters, Traci and Kristi,
to act as proxies for the dead in baptism ceremonies (1 Cor. 15:29). As a Priesthood holder in the office of an Elder, I was able to perform the baptisms, and Kristi and Traci acted as the proxy in behalf of the persons who have died without the chance for baptism by this authority while living. What a great and marvelous plan our Heavenly Father has to provide ALL of his children a chance to accept the saving ordinances of the Gospel and return to live with him. We did names from a family genealogical file of a member of our ward, and collectively offer the baptism ordinance to 1500 spirits on the other side of the veil, some of whom we hope will accept this vicarious work done for them, and be able then to progress to the next stage in their journey back home.

On the drive to the temple, I got a surprise call from the Moose lodge volunteer. It turns out that Johnny's big fish was a prize winner in his age class. Johnnie had won a bike! So, after returning home, I drove back to Woodland to the Moose lodge with Johnny and Koda, and Johnny got to pick a bike. Turns out he got the one he had picked earlier from all the available bikes when we had toured the grounds earlier in the day. He is very thrilled with the bike!

Johnny and I then drove to The Old Spaghetti Factory and enjoyed some Mizethra ala Homer (spaghetti with Mezethra cheese and brown butter). This is one of Johnny's favorites. While we were there, someone had a birthday celebration. Johnny said, "hey, I just had a birthday (two weeks ago on 12 APR)" So, he called over our waitress and told her that he had missed coming in on his birthday and could they come and sing to him as well. Well, with that Johnny charm, of course they couldn't resist, so they rounded up all the wait staff and brought him a second helping of Spumoni ice cream with a candle in it and sang Happy Birthday to him. We brought at least half our food home for leftovers. Koda guarded the car well, and we gave him a puppy treat and water.

We stopped by Super Walmart on the way home and got mom some mother's day roses. We also found out that Johnny's bike was one of the best of the 20" bikes available, but that none of the ones they carried had gears. You have to go up to 24" before they start with the gears.

One the way home, I got to thinking about what a great day it had been and how much I owed a day like this to my mom. Mom is the one who always allowed Dad and I time to get away and fish, thus contributing to my love of fishing. She taught me to be a great dad, and of the joys of parenting. Mom helped teach me the gospel and has continually helped keep me on the straight and narrow path (and I wouldn't be a Priesthood holder or have been in the House of the Lord today if it were not for her). I probably would not have been a home teacher, and had a friend like Jason, so I probably wouldn't have even learned of the event. For that matter, I probably would not have 6 children, and thus Johnny (the sixth) to share this great day with. For all these things and sooooooo much more, thanks Mom. Happy Mother's day!

Good luck Ashley

Last fall, my daughter KristiAnne asked if we could help out Ashley, a friend of hers (she had met in the Church's Young Single Adult program) who would soon be homeless, due to the circumstances of the family she was living with previously as a nanny.

Ashley came to live with us until she could find another more permanent place to live, hopefully by getting a job and supporting herself. Given our wonderful economy, this did not happen, despite Ashley's fairly consistent attempts to become employed.

Given that Kristi is coming home from BYU Idaho in a few weeks, and would need the room Ashley was using, Ashley arranged to move in with her father in Tacoma WA. Her father brought a trailer down yesterday, and we spent a few hours loading her storage unit and the belongings she had at our home.

I was touched by Ashley's parting comments. She (and her father) sincerely thanked us for taking her in and caring for her. Ashley said the thing she would miss most about not living with us was the 7:20 AM family prayer.

As when Chelsa moved out, I feel like I'm sending off another daughter (so that makes four now). It hasn't been all roses, but she is already missed. It felt strange going to church today without her in the Suburban. Johnny was the first to voice his feelings, after our morning prayer, dedicating our fast to a father in need, saying "I miss Ashley"

She has truely blessed our lives during her stay at the Atkinson home. Since Ash was a fairly new member of the church, the Elder's were still doing follow up visits with her, teaching her more of the gospel on Tuesday night visits. The Elders also came over and helped with the move. We even had three Elder's quorum members show up at the appointed time to help out. Our kids have attended some of these discussions, and learned even more of the gospel. Its amazing the questions new members have that don't occur to life-long members to ask.

Good luck Ashley - we look forward to your weekend visits when you need to see your doctors here, or visit with James. Remember Amtrack has a low fare from Tacoma to Vancouver.

Neighbors and chain saws

Now, that's a gripping title, don't ya think.

That others may learn from my mistakes . . .

It all started as an effort to deal with complaints from John, our backfence neighbor, who thought our trees needed a little trimming. After a major facelift to the NE corner of our yard, we had a whole driveway filled with tree branches, blackberry vines, and greenwaste. I decided to use the chainsaw to make short work of the pile, get a little firewood for campouts and backyard firepit cookouts, etc.

Now, I'm recovering from yet another dumb injury. I'm feeling a lot like Tim Taylor lately. I trimmed the fingernail (and a bit of the finger), using my chainsaw. Turns out chainsaws slice through pine like a hot knife through butter, but bite into and pull birch like a vaacum beater brush too close to a powercord. Picture holding the homelite chainsaw in the right hand, holding the tree branch to be cut into firewood in the left. The branch was pulled under the chainsaw (with my hand attached, pulled in from more that a couple of feet to the left) within a split second.

The doctor I visited (at Misti's insistence) the following Monday said I was dang lucky to only have lost as much flesh and nail as I had, and that this would be painful for a while. They took x-rays to make sure I hadn't knicked the bone (yeah, the cuts were that deep). They did a cleansing soak and gave me a fancy bandaid and homecare instructions, oh, and a tentanus booster. Its a little painful even now, two weeks later, typing this blog entry. It's still bandaided, but mostly just to keep the nail fragments from snagging on things until they grow out.

I have a whole new respect for chainsaw safety now, and will no longer "hold" anything I am cutting with such a saw; probably common sense for most of you, but for a big macho dude, who sometimes gets a Superman complex, thinking the ordinary laws of physics don't really apply to me, well . . ., you get the point.

Plumbing woes

During the last really cold snap in Vancouver, our kitchen drain became plugged, and then, while I was working on snaking it out, Misti noticed a leak in the garage under the kitchen.

We eventually got a handyman in our ward to look at it with me to get an opinion if we should cut into the ceiling and where, and turns out he has a son that is a plumber in Portland. He said plumbing calls have dried up and they have very little work currently, so we were able to get him and his son to come help with the drain at a seriously discounted rate.







Turns out that a drain pipe had become disconnected at a 90 degree joint, then the leaking water was above and leaked into the heating ducts, which made it very difficult to pin-point the leak. We had to demolish several parts of the garage ceiling and wall board, and a large chuck of the same in the basement hallway.

The traps and pipes under the kitchen sink and island (which we have had trouble with since moving in) had been installed with sub-code (in fact illegal) piping, which we completely replaced with new stuff in code. It no longer leaks and is a lot sturdier. In additional to the break, there was also still a plug in the drain, which required renting a 50' snake from home depot (another 20' beyond the one I bought for the job). This did the trick, and we also installed a cleanout access point in the basement pipe to make snaking out the drain easier in the future. I learned lots about heating vents, plumbing, and even water heaters (who knew they had two heating elements and two thermostats the have to be kept in sync to heat water efficiently). I have previously adjusted up only one of these on each of the water heaters. Now we have increased the temp to 140 degrees on both, and seem to have enough hot water now to last several showers (an important feature on Sunday morning when all want to shower near the same time).

The blessing of hearing

You really don't appreciate what you have until its gone, at least thats how I feel about hearing. Having only 20% hearing in the right ear does some really stange things to you, like not being able to tell where the cell phone is that you have set down and clearly hear ringing in your other ear. Directional hearing requires two working ears. Try completely plugging only one ear for a day to see what I am talking about.

Anyway, the doc says another month to my hearing test to see how well we did on the ear drum repair. The graft has sealed in all but a very small spot, which the doc pricked on my last visit to make it bleed and seal all the way over. The inner gel pack is still disolving as well, though the doc removed the outer one a few weeks ago. With any luck, I should be hearing again soon.

The nose is doing great and I can breath much more freely now through the left side.

Thanks to all for your prays and good wishes on my behalf.

Bone broth's been working

My knee is nearly healed, and I have resumed neighborhood walks and elliptical training at 24 HR Fitness. I'm sure the bone broth has helped get my body the nutrients it needs to cushion my joints against further injury. The right knee is doing better as well.

The Holidays have come and gone. We didn't even get a Christmas poem and card written this year. It has just been too busy.

I volunteered as the chairperson for the Scouting fund raising drive this year, which consists of one event, which is the Christmas tree recycling project. It consumed the better part of three Saturdays to distribute flyers, organize the volunteers, and finally to pick up the trees and gather and account for the donations (which are still trickling in in the second week of January). We also got the big snow storms on both of our flyer days, and still had much snow and ice on the pickup day on January 3rd. The scouts were amazing however, and despite the occasional complaint of "are we done yet?" did an fantastic job. We had mostly parent volunteers, but this year, even had an Elder volunteer that only has your children. He drove his pickup truck and towed the big trailer lent to us by a member of the Salmon Creek ward who has a small farm and a lot of such equipment. Our collections were less than half that of last year, however, for the scouts the participated, they made a little over $6 per hour of time invested. That's still a pretty good return for a volunteer service.

Christmas was a cozy event at our home. No extended relatives visiting this year, but we did get some time with my oldest daughter Bri and my new son-in-law Grant, who were officially staying at his parents (about 20 minutes away). We also had my second oldest daughter Kristi come home from college at BYU Idaho for the holidays. Finally, our house-guest Ashley and her boyfriend James spent much of the Holidays with us as well. The other four kids still live at home, and enjoyed the family traditions of the Christmas countdown (a scrapbook with a scripture, song, and story for each of the 25 days till Christmas in December). Story time is ended with a candy from the countdown chains, which hava a special chocolate Santa on Christmas Eve. This year, we also visited the Vancouver Festival of the Nativities. Traci, Misti, and I split time on the camera to capture pictures of most of the nativites and artwork there. I put this to a selection of some of my favorite nativity music for a stunning slide show (which is great for family, but since it contains much that I'm sure is secured by artists copyright, cannot and should not be distributed beyond our immediate family per acceptable use).

Next week (Tuesday), I will undergo a couple of surgeries to restore my hearing, and widen my nasal passage. This should be the last of the surgeries for the foreseeable future (yeah). I have so much pain killer left from the last two, I won't even need to fill my new Rx this time around. I appreciate your thoughts and prays.