Make New Friends, But Keep the Old

Ben has arrived home from BYU for the Christmas holiday break. He brought his roommate, Benjamin, here to stay for a couple of days until he hooks up with his family when they come to town.

Ben's friends, Ethan and Collin, came over tonight. It's always so fun for him and for us to see his old friends. We enjoyed having dinner together before the guys left to go to a movie. Let the holiday fun begin!!!

Here's a photo taken when David and Collin came over at Thanksgiving.

We enjoy seeing the grown-up version of these guys we knew when they were little boys. Now they've grown up into fine men--who still like to do what they always used to do when they were younger: hole up in the basement playing pool, watching movies, playing video games, talking and laughing together.

We're glad Ben had such great friends growing up and we're happy he's got such great friends at college.

Good friends are the best!

Ho, Ho, Go Cougars!!

Glen arrived home from work tonight wearing this lovely BYU Santa cap his office manager gave him to wear to their company Christmas party today.

Nothing like the color blue to make a person get in the Christmas spirit--right?

After posing for the picture by the tree, Glen could hardly wait to show me something. He was so pleased with himself that he hadn't cut off the plastic hook the stores use to hang up merchandise. He was preserving that hook so it could act as an ornament hanger for our Christmas tree.

Let's take a vote and see who thinks this is a wonderful new ornament for our festive family tree?

First vote cast--HECK NO!!

That blue Santa hat is meant to be worn to the BYU vs. Utah game tomorrow and it is not meant to be the center of attention on the tannenbaum in the middle of the living room.

Anyone else want to cast a vote?

Where, Oh Where Can It Be?

Ben's friends were coming over on Thanksgiving weekend and they were excited to play pool. It was a fun activity they had done many times in their youth and they were anxious to try their hand at it when they came together again to relive old times.

There was just one problem...

The #9 ball was missing.

There have been times when the little grandchildren think those billiard balls are toys and they get them out of the pockets and play with them. Sometimes they roll them all around on the pool table, sometimes they drop them off the pool table and sometimes they try to bounce or throw them around.

I'm not blaming anyone here, but it was hard not to assume one of the small darlings had considered that particular ball his/her toy and carried it off somewhere to play with it.

For some reason I kept thinking back about Rebecca's story of one of her daughters hiding things all around the house and she still--to this day--hasn't found the tomato that has remained missing. It just seemed like there was no telling where that #9 ball might be hiding.

One day I went down to the basement and looked everywhere for that ball. I looked through all the toys in the three toy buckets. I looked in the storage room in the place I used to hide the ping pong balls and billiard balls so the little kids wouldn't be able to find them. I looked in the desk drawers. I looked everywhere and came up empty-handed and we decided to go ahead and purchase a replacement ball because it was nowhere to be found.

After placing the new #9 ball in the missing spot, Glen felt the need to look for himself to see if he could find the missing ball. I reminded him of the thorough search I'd made of the basement earlier in the day and told him that ball could have been missing for the whole 2 years Ben was gone on his mission for all we knew. I told him one of the little grandkids could possibly even have thrown it away.

Glen walked straight over to the garbage can in the corner by the pool table.

He lifted the lid and peered inside.

Something in the pile of smashed soda cans and empty candy bags caught his eye.

Who would ever believe we would be so lucky as to find a ball that had been thrown in the garbage. Glen had a feeling he would find the ball that day and there it was--staring right up at him.

Here's just hoping that if another billiard ball ever goes missing again, it better be the yellow #9.

Wicked Windy Weather

Utah has been making weather headlines for the hurricane-like winds that blew all night Wednesday and Thursday morning.

The newspaper gave the following report for wind gusts:

Weber Canyon, 66 mph
Farmington, 84 mph
Centerville, 102 mph
Bountiful, 78 mph
U of U, 69 mph
Millcreek, 47 mph
Hurricane, 65 mph

(Note: a 100 mph wind gust is the same as a Category 2 hurricane.)

Not even the city named Hurricane experienced as much wind as we had around this area. It was brutal and relentless for many, long hours.

I checked with my parents and they were without power all day long yesterday--and that was with my poor mother being sick and feeling quite rotten. I'm sure it made her happy to finally have heat and lights once again last night.

Our power went out yesterday morning for one minute--just long enough to make me have to go around and reset all the clocks in the house.

We did have a loss. The cover blew off our grill and I can't see it anywhere. I must admit that the thing was old and had several rips in it and we needed a new one because this one wasn't really protecting the grill hardly much at all. So, I think I'll say--good riddance to that old, tattered cover. The wind actually helped us not have to deal with throwing the thing away.

Other people didn't fare quite as well as we did. I drove around today looking at the damage and saw lots of people with many shingles blown off their homes. There were lots of tree branches that needed to be cleaned up and tons of trees that had blown over. It looks like the trees that fell into the roads and onto the power lines have been dealt with. Now it's all the other ones that are down that need to be taken care of.

I heard on the news last night that Davis County has been declared an emergency and all the schools were closed today. I also saw on the news that the cemetery right behind South Davis Junior High, where Sarah and Ben went to school, received a lot of damage.

The Bountiful Memorial Park is the cemetery I enjoy walking through. I love that cemetery and I was so sad today when I saw all the trees that are down.

Trash and shingles had blown everywhere and were littering the lawn of the cemetery.

The trees had toppled over on top of headstones and some of them were peeking out from beneath the branches.

This tree came very close to this tall tombstone.

My friend, Tricia, had gotten her neighbor kids to go out "disaster chasing" with her. She had these kids climb up on the trees to take pictures of them to send to her own kids so they can see the destruction.

I told her to take a picture of this guy to send to her missionary son. He is one of the full-time missionaries serving in this mission who got asked to help out with the clean-up efforts. His companion was close by--in the next tree--using another chain saw to cut all the branches off the tree.

The cemetery had a row of huge trees growing along the sidewalk by the road. Now this is the view along the sidewalk of those same trees all toppled over.

The golf course up on the hill had its fair share of trees down as well. So SAD!!