Farewell To Joel and His Youth

Today was Joel’s “Farewell” in church. 

We had quite the crowd in the meeting.

It seemed there were lots of girls but that may have just been my impression.

Joel gave a great talk on the Atonement.

We were all impressed with his maturity and insight.  There is a real deepness to him that comes out when he puts his mind to the effort.  Afterwards we had a gathering at our home for those who came.  The house was packed for most of the afternoon and all seemed to have a great time.  Most of the food was gone (Teresa was worried there wouldn’t be anything people liked but it was consumed) and no one complained.  I am including a selection of pics to show how it all went.  For those who missed, we missed you and hope you get a chance to say hi before Joel is off (next Wed. morning Feb 3). 

Wendy, Troy and kids

 

A small group hanging out in the big room----------------------

 

 

Joel partaking of some good grub.

Old folk visiting.

Friends from College who came up to wish Joel well.

And, of course, what would a farewell be without a visit from Elvis.

Hurray for Brian

Some time ago I opined that it would be nice if one of my sons was to help me solve a few problems I had with blogging.  Unbeknownst to me, Brian entered my blog and made a few adjustments to the look and feel of what I had.  He also informed me that there was a program called Windows Live Writer that would let me insert pictures without the misery caused by Blogger.  Thanks to Brian, I am now functioning much better and hope to improve the quality of all my future blogs.

On the other hand, I am discovering that Live Writer does not have all the same functionality of Word so I have to learn to type again.  Such is the price of progress.

Just for giggles, here is a photo I am inserting the new way.

That’s little Katie and Aubrey at the Christmas party. 

Happy Day, Teresa

BTW, so no one else forgets:

   Today is the celebration of the

  33^rd year since Teresa knelt with me and said YES.

                    Way to Hang in there Little Girl.

       I love you and hope for 33 more good ones.

                                      Mikey

Never Give In

Last night I went to Provo for our weekly visit with Brian and Paula.

Teresa didn't go because Matt (Josh & Heather's boy) had a little encounter with some "Orange Glo".

(Nothing serious but we weren't sure until we waited a while for symptoms)

So I spent the evening alone with Becca and Katie and had a great time.

Not sure Katie did cause she cried while Mom and Dad were gone. But I got to watch the BYU game and time passed pretty well.

On the way home, I decided to stop and get a burger and drink.

Tiredness and worry about sleeping while driving made me consider and then approve the purchase of a small caffeine
laced drink. I admit that it was a moment of weakness, founded on a rationalization. I HAD A DR. PEPPER!!!

And boy did I pay for it. It did its job. The caffeine penetrated my system and kept me awake.

ALL STINK'IN NIGHT!!

What do we learn from this little encounter with the dark side?

Don't give in to temptation and NEVER let rationalization get you out of where you should be. I have repented and hope I never repeat this mistake again. I saw every hour and many of the ½ hours throughout the long and dreary night. Finally decided to give up and get out of bed at 4:30. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

New Years Misery

Just a quick entry to welcome the New Year.

We are in the midst of a party that will go all night. Not my choosing but Teresa let Joel do it last year so he is doing it again. Hopefully it will settle down about 3am and we can relax a little. Right now it is pretty loud and crazy.

I'll post some pics when I get them 

off the camera.

Girls and boys having fun.

Didn't quite make it all night.