Beagle Mania

Our puppy, Scout, was very sad when our neighbors moved and she didn't have their dog to play with anymore. Emerson was still longing for a boy dog. We have now solved both problems by getting another beagle, Slash. He's two months younger than Scout and is much more outgoing than she is. Scout is scared of most people and we hope Slash will bring her out of her shell. They're adorable dogs with great personalities. I'm just happy that someone is glad to see me when I come home from work now!

Dexter's Summer Job

Dexter is working at Scofield Boy Scout Camp this summer. Since he's only 15 years old, finding a great job can be difficult and he really needed to earn the money for his choir expenses for the upcoming school year (around $1,000). The ultimate performer, Dex absolutely loves this job. He takes care of the 11-13 year old boys who come to camp, entertains them, and trains them on a few different merit badges. On Wednesday nights, they put on a special campfire program where the camp staff teach about patriotism. Part of that program includes having some the boys recreate the flag raising at Iwo Jima during WWII (pictured). Dexter is in the position of the Native American who was originally involved in that historic event. I'm sure you'll all recognize the famous pose, but you may not realize that this was actually the second flag raising. They decided to put up a bigger flag and remembered to take pictures (different sets of soldiers in the two events, the last died a few weeks ago). For all of Dexter's hard work, he gets paid $90 a week and his paychecks show that he works over 80 hours for $1.03 per hour. Despite the substandard wages, he loves his work and everyone there loves him. Feel free to send him mail at:

Dexter Tapahe, staff

Scofield Scout Camp

HC 35 Box 212

Helper, UT 84526

Who's Charlotte?

Dexter turned 15 on April 26. Because of all the graduation hoopla, his grandma and auntie were here from Arizona to help celebrate. Dexter was hoping his grandma got him a CD by the band Good Charlotte. Instead, he opened his present to find a DVD of Charlotte's Web. We all thought it was hilarious...but Dexter gave us that teenager look....

He did it!!!

Emerson is now has his bachelor's degree from Utah Valley State College. He should receive his teaching license some time this summer. The ceremony was wonderful and it was exciting to see Emerson and three of his friends as the first P.E. Teacher Education majors to graduate from UVSC. His mom and sister joined us in proudly watching our favorite graduate walk up to the stand.

In addition to the usual cap and gown, Emerson wore his medallion for graduating cum laude (with honors) and a beaded wolverine (UVSC's mascot). He also wore an eagle feather on his cap. We're all very proud and threw him a backyard barbecue party to celebrate. Our sister-in-law, Sharon Tapahe, received her master's degree from BYU on the same day, so we had a cake made in voth schools' colors that said "Congratulations graduates BYUVSC"

Meet our new baby

We have a new addition to our family. Her name is Scout and she's my gift to Emerson for his upcoming graduation. Scout is a beagle and she's now 12 weeks old. Like any puppy, she's chewing on anything in sight and is very playful.

Emerson and the boys spent this weekend building a dog house for Scout. The house part is done. Now they're building a deck/porch for it. Men!

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.