Pour, oh pour the Pirate sherry...

Dexter did a great job in Pirates of Penzance. They decided to add some obvious physical humor to the show to help get laughs out of an audience too uneducated to get old British humor. Another twist was that they opened with someone impersonating Captain Jack Sparrow and then the Pirate King telling them that it was a different pirate show. Captain Jack was a running gag throughout the show. With the help of the high school's orchestra, the music sounded great. Several of the stars in the cast were impressive singers. Dexter has now retired his pirate duds. I think if we let him, he would wear them all the time. He's focusing on his grades now, so no new plays for awhile.

We've had a long stretch of below freezing weather lately. Nights were dropping below zero. Our pipes froze two weeks ago and we spent Martin Luther King Day trying to figure out where the pipes were leaking. Easier said than done since our 107 year old house has virtually no access to anything. Dexter spent most of the day wriggling under the house and taking pictures so we could see what was going on. The only access we found for the leak was cutting a hole through the vanity , the floor and the wall of the bathroom. The frozen pipes burst the soldering back there. A friend tried to help us solder the pipes and caught the insulation on fire. Eventually, the pipes were back in working order, but we could still hear water running. That's when we discovered the stream running along our foundation. The main water line from the water meter into our house had broken. Even worse, our water pipe runs under part of the neighbor's property.


We've spent the last two weeks turning the water down at the meter (so it doesn't freeze again) and then running outside in the freezing cold to turn it up and then back down so we can take showers and do laundry. Our home teachers rounded up some people to help us fix the pipes yesterday.

The neighbors (elderly) let us know how unhappy they were with us messing up their lawn as we dug a nice big hole to find the leak.

It was quite an adventure and we discovered our sewer line in the process. Our water pipe ended up running under the sewer line.

The leak was due to errors made by whoever put the plumbing in originally. When they tightened the pipe with a wrench, it scraped off the galvanizing.

We're probably lucky the pipe lasted this long before rotting through.

With help from our friends in the ward, we fixed the pipe. We also know that these old pipes won't last much longer. Our summer project will be to put in a new water line -- hopefully in a better location.

A Wii Christmas

Thanks to the generosity of someone very dear to us, we were able to purchas Nintendo's Wii video game system. This was the big Christmas gift for our family. The boys had no idea we were getting this, so it was a great surprise. Emo, Sharon, and I set up the system and then wrapped a box to go over it. The funny thing is they didn't discover it until near the end of the present-opening. When Dexter went to pick up the box, he got a little worried and thought something had gone wrong since the box was

so light.

In case you aren't familiar with the Wii, let me tell you a little about it. It's an ideal system for those who don't normally play video games. The controllers are wireless and many of your movements in the game are done by just moving the remotes around. The game that comes with the system, Wii Sports, lets you play baseball, golf, tennis, and do some boxing and bowling. You box by punching the air with the controllers. (Sharon and Dexter are pictured boxing each other here) You swing the controller to swing the bat, golf club, or tennis racket. I love it because non-gamers like me can play as well as videogame addicts like Dwayne. We've had a blast boxing each other and having virtual family bowling nights. We're all very grateful that our special someone was willing to give up possible profit on ebay to help us have a wonderful Christmas.

Houston, we have a sidewalk!

For those of you who have been to our house in the last year or two, you know that we ripped out our sidewalk in anticipation of putting in a new one. We thought we knew what we were doing, but cement supplies ran out. When cement was available again, it was too expensive. We've had an empty ditch leading up to our house for over a year now. I finally decided to take an extra day off work over Thanksgiving weekend and put in a brick sidewalk. The bricks came from three different neighbors who had some extras lying around. Over the past couple of months, other people had offered to help, but they never came through. While Emo and the kids cleaned the house for Thanksgiving, I put in the sidwalk. It's kind of lumpy in spots, but it's better than having a ditch. Sharon came up from Vegas to spend Thanksgiving with us and got to walk on our beloved sidewalk many times.

There be Pirates!

Dexter has been cast in his school's production of "Pirates of Penzance." He will be one of the pirates. Rehearsals have already begun and performances begin in February. They have created a little website for their play at http://provonianpirates.blogspot.com/

I grew up listening to the music from "Pirates," so I'm very excited to see how they do with it. Listening to Dexter sing some of my favorites makes it hard to have to wait until February to see the whole show.

Halloween

Halloween...that wonderful holiday for trying out alternate identities or expressing your weirder side. With my hectice schedule, I went for a cheap and easy costume. I stuck nametags with different names all over my shirt (having an identity crisis). It got a few checkles and didn't get in my way at work so it was a success. Dexter dress the way he wishes we would let him (kind of gothic) and is a little disappointed Halloween is over. Dwayne (pictured) showed us what he would look like if he cut his long hair. Actually, he went to a party at his girlfriend's house and the afro wig made him look just like her brother. For school, he borrowed his Scout leader's kilt and wore it. Not really a costume, but now he's interested in making kilts part of their Scout uniform since he found it so comfortable to wear. The biggest challenge of the night was trying to keep things quiet so Emerson could get some sleep before work. I opted to put the bowl of treats out on the front steps to avoid constant banging on the door. It didn't take long for someone to dump the contents of the bowl in their treat bag. then I turned off the lights and got back to my homework.

The Gang's All Here!

Dwayne's Eagle Court of Honor turned out to be a great event. I was pretty stressed out trying to work out all the details, but the glitches just made it more memorable. On Thursday, half the electricity in our house went out. We had to use flashlights and oil lamps to light our way in the bathroom and kitchen. Late Thursday night we found out that more family were coming up for the event than we had planned and our house was in no shape to host them. The program was a little late in starting due to some late arrivals and our struggles to figure out how to connect the laptop and projector for Dwayne's slide show. After that, things went fine. Our friend, Carl Moore, performed a hoop dance and a northern men's traditional dance for us. Another close friend, Angela Crank, presented Dwayne with a real eagle feather that she had used for dancing.

We're very proud of Dwayne and we're all so glad that so many family members were part of it. Loren, Mom, Evonne, Sydney, Seth, Gene, Sharon, Erin, Dion, Emery, Brenda, Eriona, and Ethan all came. Loren's not in the picture because he's behind the camera. I'm working on a video to send to everyone who couldn't make it.

The Annual Mount Timpanogos Hike

Every year, during August, on a Friday night with a full/mostly full moon, some people in our neighborhood organize a hike up Mount Timpanogos. We start the hike at 1:00 a.m. and head up the Aspen Grove trail. For people who are very active, it's a very nice hike and they reach the summit in around 3.5 hours. Last year was my first year attempting this adventure. Hiking in the dark is pretty interesting, and, once I saw what I had hiked up when the sun came up, I was glad I didn't see it on the way up. Last year, our little group stayed together and I struggled to keep up with their pace. About 80% of the way to the summit, there is a shelter next to a lake. I stayed there and waited until the rest of the group made it to the summit and returned. Dwayne and Dexter both went with me last year. Dwayne stayed with me at the shelter (he's been to the summit before) and Dexter went to the summit.

The whole experience was pretty crazy. The group that went to the summit decided to come back down by sliding down a glacier. I watched someone slice open their arm doing that 30 minutes before our group tried. Fortunately a group of brothers (the Henrys) had some rope and other equipment that allowed our group to descend safely.

The Henry brothers then used their water filter to get us all more water for the hike down. On the way down, most of the group was impatient and started running back down. I could hardly walk anymore, so I was quickly left behind. Along the way, there was a snow bank over part of the trail. In the heat, the snow was starting to melt and when I tried to cross it, I slipped and was about to fall off the trail (and the mountain). The Henry brothers came to the rescue again. They happened to be right behind me and helped me get back up and on the trail.

Later on, after a few more miles of hiking down alone, Dwayne called me on the radio. He had gone off the trail, slipped into a stream, and was now hanging on for dear life since he was about to go off the end of a waterfall. He was having a tough time describing where he was, so it took awhile before I figured out which waterfall he was on. One of the Henry brothers was again in the right place at the right time and located Dwayne and rescued him. Once everyone was safe again, the rest of the group hurried down the trail and headed home. I was in agony and could barely will myself to move my legs. It was another hour before I reached the parking lot.

This year, I rode with the rest of the group so they couldn't leave me behind. Dexter is staffing a Scout camp, so he missed the hike. Dwayne and I headed back up the mountain at 1:00 am Friday Night/Saturday morning. The group eventually split into several different groups. Dwayne made it to the shelter first (as usual). I travelled alone, taking 5 hours to reach the shelter since I stopped a lot along the way. It's an incredible hike and I was glad I did it. As far as I could tell, I was the only overweight person out there trying this. Once I reached the shelter, I rested for an hour. Half the group was just reaching the summit. A few had stayed at the shelter and there were two who had already gone back down. I decided to start back down since I knew I would be slow again. Two of the boys in our group decided to hike down with me and they helped me keep a pretty reasonable pace. The hike down is beatiful, but painful. The scenery is spectacular, but going down the trail is hard on the knees and your toes are constantly being jammed into the front of your shoes. My feet hurt pretty bad, and I really slowed down near the end. Dwayne passed me up just before reaching the parking lot. I hiked down in 3 hours, he did it in 1.5 hours. So now I'm soaking my feet, catching up on sleep, and trying to get stuff done around the house without walking much.

Until next year.... (I promise I will be in better shape next year)

Our EAGLE SCOUT

We have set the date for Dwayne's Eagle Court of Honor. It will be on Friday, August 25, 2006, at 7:00 pm in the cultural hall of our church building. Dwayne's pretty excited and has already received letters of congratulations from Utah's governor and from Senator Bennett. There are still a lot of plans to figure out, but we're excited to see our son get Scouting's highest honor. Utah has such a large Scouting program that people often forget how rare it is to become an Eagle Scout. Only 2% of Boy Scouts ever get it. For a Native American boy to get it is even more rare.

What next?!?!

Yes...fixed the dryer, found the paperwork. Then we spent 5 days of last week with no refrigerator. The compressor died. Despite spending a fortune on ice and dry ice, we ended up losing a lot of food. Just a tip -- never go shopping the day before your refrigerator dies...

Ended up buying a new water heater so we should be good for the next decade. In order to replace a water heater, you must first drain the old one and then once the new one is properly installed, it must be filled up and given a chance to heat the water. I think Emerson had a pretty tense day with no hot water because of the switch and no refrigerator since we were in between diagnosing and fixing stuff.

Did you hear about our big wind storm? That was the third major one to rip through the same path in our neighborhood. It uprooted some pretty big trees, but it wasn't as bad as on the west side of town. We ended up helping a neighbor try to dig out from two different trees that decided to shed half their branches on their house. Fortunately, no injuries other than strained muscles from cutting up and carrying all that wood. The wind kicked up again today and tore another branch off their tree. They're seriously considering getting rid of the tree entirely.