Mini Posts 109 Degree Summer Addition

Finally Completed!

After six months, we finally have a completed sidewalk up to our home. I started back in February pouring individual concrete blocks and in May began the process of placing them in my front yard. We had to take a break from the sidewalk while we did the sprinkler system and the grass, but picked back up with the sidewalk in June. Shannon has been most patient as the project consumed every free Saturday morning and Monday evening for the last few months and I want to thank her for not killing me when I would come in completely exhausted and done at 1:00 p.m. on a Saturday and she was ready to do other things. I would also like to thank my back for not completely giving out on me at some point during this process. Picking up 18" X 18" X 3" concrete blocks is not a back's favorite thing to do, but no discs gave out and no muscles blew up at any point and for that I am also grateful. Up next for our front yard is the process of building a retaining wall type border around the grass and then bringing in rock to cover the rest of the dirt. No sweat! As long as no one expects a faster timeline than the sidewalk took.





The Mind of Logan



Logan and Braden have been in swimming lessons the last few weeks and it has been a really good experience for them. First of all, they both have been gearing up the courage and they eventually made it off the low dive. It was quite an exciting time for them and everyone was very proud. However, you can imagine Shannon's surpise when she looks over and sees Logan climbing the ladder to the high dive along with the instructor. With trembling legs they walk out to the end of the high dive. He stands there for a moment, looks in several directions and then he and the instructor walk back to the ladder and back down. Shannon asked him later what he was doing and why he didn't jump. He explained that was never the intention. He said, "I just wanted to see the view." Sounds good to me.





Temple Moves On



For those who don't live in our valley, the progress on the Gila Valley Temple is moving forward rapidly. This has been the driest monsoon season we have had in a few years and while at first, we wondered what we were doing that was causing the Lord to be upset with us, we realized that the dry weather has allowed construction to move forward with minimal stoppages. Whether that is the reason for the dry weather or not, I am not sure, but it certainly has helped. However, the heat has been oppressive so maybe it is a little of both. The Lord wants the temple completed and so no rain and for all of us who need to get our act together before it opens, here is a little (lot) heat to help you get your mind right. It hit 109 last Saturday here in Safford. Of course I was in the front yard working. Good times.

We look forward to the temple and are very excited for its progress.

Thatcher and Safford Town Council Update

As I mentioned in the last post, Safford has completely backed off of the library fees and it appears they may be gone for good. The pool non-resident fees remain and the golf course is still in limbo, but the library has been taken off the table for non-resident fees. So good news on that front.

If that wasn't enough, at the last Thatcher Town Council meeting, it was announced that over the next five years, the town will build a library/pool complex on the west side of town. YEEEEEHAWWWWWW!!!!!! With the reality that EAC's pool is probably not in it for the long haul, Thatcher decided to move forward with this plan and thereby resolve Safford's problem of Thatcher piggybacking off of them too much. I wonder how this will work for Safford since they were complaining about the money needed to run a pool now that it appears that they will lose half of their business over the fees they imposed. We will just have to wait and see.

The Progression of Kate



Our sweet little baby who barely began crawling a month or so ago decided it was time to pull up on the furniture last night in the middle of family home evening. This of course took all attention away from anything remotely spiritual for a while and it took us a moment to get back on track, but it was worth it. While she has been the best baby, her new mobility has shown that she is one of our busiest with regard to getting into things. But with a smile like hers, she rarely gets in trouble. She loves to reach and grab Shannon's earrings and is constantly told no. The other day, she looked up at Shannon and smiled her big smile and said, "Na na na na na." (Kate for no no no no no) and then reached over and grabbed Shannon's earrings. Not sure if that is a positive for getting the message across that she shouldn't be reaching for the earrings or a negative for the complete lack of concern shown in ignoring that message.

What Time Is It Anyway?

This has been my first month to conduct Sacrament Meeting and WOW I am not good at this. I have had three weeks now and every single week I have said "Good Morning" or referred to our meeting taking place in the morning and we meet at 1:00 p.m. Also, on testimony Sunday, Shannon pointed out that I tried to close the meeting 5 minutes after it began by saying we would have testimonies until 1:05 instead of 2:05. However, as poorly as I have done, at least I didn't have the experience that Kenny Smith, our High Priest Group Leader had in Priesthood opening exercises. An elderly man in our ward who lives in a nursing home wanted to attend a funeral of a recently passed friend of his. With his condition, this would not be easy and would require the help of some individuals. Brother Smith was asking for volunteers when he said, "Brother Whitecotton needs assistance in attending the funeral of a friend. She was a woman he was fiddling with at the nursing home." Upon realizing what he had said, he quickly backtracked and explained they had played the fiddle together at the nursing home, but the damage was already done.

One Final Thought

I urge everyone to write their congressman or woman regarding the Health Care initiative currently being considered. Having served my mission in Great Britain, I have seen first hand what nationalized health care looks like and believe me, we don't want it. We especially don't want to be rushed into it because a group of individuals say we can't wait for everyone to consider what is actually contained in the bill. This is a really, really bad bill and something that is important enough to ask anyone who will listen, to please take the time to write your representatives and express that it is not what we want. I will now step off of my soapbox.

The Misnomer of Fish Lake: AKA The Rapiers Go To Utah

It is hot. It is really hot. Not only is it hot, the humidity is as thick as I can remember it being in our nice little Arizona valley and we are just getting started with July. Which really has me looking forward to the 24th celebration in Pima later this month. It seems like every time it is held there, it should be renamed The LDS Human Bake Off or The Biggest Loser Mormon Community Edition. (The biggest loser comment refers to the amount of weight loss that occurs through the sweat glands of all present at the celebration and not any person or group of people who call Pima home. I just wanted to clarify.) I realize I sound a little testy about the heat, but that is all because we just spent several days in Central Utah where the temperature never really got much above 80. It was a little hard to come home from that. So with that intro, here is our story of the trip to Fish Lake.

This is the 15 passenger van we rented to drive to Fish Lake. In honor of the movie, RV, we referred to it lovingly as "The Big Rolling Turd".

Our story begins on Saturday, June 27, as we prepared to leave. This trip also doubled as the Danny Rapier Reunion 2009, so we had worked out to have my dad drive behind us to Mesa where we would rent a 15 passenger van and then make the rest of the trip all together. Once in Mesa, we had to then transfer all of the luggage and other items from our van and my dad's car into the new MASSIVE van. This happened at about 1:00 p.m. in Mesa...on the most humid day of the year thus far. I am fairly sure that I am now aware of what hell will consist of. It will be transferring luggage back and forth between vans in unbelievably oppressive heat. Between the head bumping, the profuse sweating, the trying to get wires and cords situated for portable DVD players, the stacking only to find out that your latest Tetris attempt is not going to work and various other frustrations, I think I created a new dictionary of made up swear words in an effort not to use the real ones. Then we were off to Flagstaff for the next leg of our journey and our overnight destination. We noticed a sign in the middle of Phoenix about an accident on Table Mesa Road. (Ok, time for an aside. Table Mesa Road...Really? Unless my spanish has completely deserted me, that translates to Table Table Road. It reminds me of the movie Mickey Blue Eyes when he learns that his fiance's father's restaurant is called, "The La Trattoria". He says, in the stammering way only Hugh Grant can, "Well...doesn't that mean The The Trattoria". Anyway, silly duplicate names in different languages annoy me. Maybe I wouldn't hold so much animosity if I weren't about to describe what happens next.) Sure enough, we travelled at a rate of roughly 2 miles per hour when we got north of Phoenix and in the vicinity of Table Mesa Road. Nothing like having your 12 hour drive turn into a 13 hour drive in the middle of it.

Once we made it through the traffic and had a good stay and visit at my cousin Shauna's house in Flag, we were on our way again after church on Sunday, June 28th. We drove, drove and drove a little bit further stopping in Page and Kanab before finally arriving at Fish Lake Sunday evening. Jerry and Kirt had enchiladas waiting for us, so we ate and pretty much went right to bed.

Hurry, take a picture quick! This is proof that we tried to put a life jacket on Kate. This smile quickly faded.

The next day, we went out onto the lake in a pontoon boat. By law, all children under 13 must have a life preserver on. Kate is not a fan of the law and promptly forced us to ignore it and just put her in her car seat while hoping the pontoon boat didn't sink. It didn't. Within the first ten minutes of fishing, I, the amazing outdoorsman that I am, caught a fish that was by far the biggest fish I have ever caught. This would prove to be the one and only highlight of the fishing portion of our trip over the next three days. Notice I didn't say it was the only fish we saw. We saw lots of fish jumping out of the lake and laughing at us, but this was the only fish we caught the entire trip.

Here is my trophy fish. Unfortunately, no one wanted to clean it, so we fed it to the local pelicans. That's right...pelicans. I had never associated pelicans with South Central Utah, but there you go.

Kirt letting Braden and Logan drive the boat. At least it gave them something to do since the fish weren't cooperating.

That night we ate at the Fish Lake Lodge and then went back to the Cabin and made Smores. At dinner, Abby was adamant that she get a Bacon Cheeseburger. As soon as she got her dinner she took the bacon off and then ended up putting the bacon in her to go box. I asked why she didn't eat it on her burger. She explained that she liked bacon and wanted it later, but really isn't a big fan of it on her cheeseburger. I have never considered myself to be an overly cheap person or someone who is obsessed about how every dime is spent, but this was a bit much for me. I explained to Abby that her Bacon Cheeseburger days had officially come to an end.



Over the next two days, we fished and hiked and hiked and fished or else did absolutely nothing. At night we enjoyed good food and then would play games until bed. We were sorry to see it come to an end.

Jerry enjoying a homemade Smore

But end it did and soon it was Thursday and we were packing up for the drive home. It rained on us most of the way home so we were glad we were leaving the day we left. One interesting thing we saw on our travels was a sign for a business in Orderville, Utah. First off, can anyone think of a name that sounds more Brigham Young inspired than Orderville. Shannon pointed that out and I have to say, I think she has a point. Anyway, in Orderville there was a sign for "Hoyt's Sporting Goods and CHAINSAWS". The emphasis on chainsaws is not my addition, it was emphasized on the sign. First off, you just can't beat the name Hoyt. Second, you hear a lot about the dangers of chainsaws and the number of accidents that accompany them. Well, if there is a large market for people who consider chainsaws to be sporting equipment, I may have found part of the accident problem. Moving on, we stopped for lunch in Kanab at a place called Denny's Wigwam. The food was good and the picture opportunities were even better. Below are a couple of the pictures we got during our stop there. When Braden saw the picture of Shannon standing behind the plywood cutout, he said, "Look mom, you are wearing your party dress." My only comment is, may I please have an invitation to that party.





After another night in Flagstaff, another van transfer and a visit to Ocean Blue (self-serve Frozen Yogurt place in Mesa...Highly Recommended) with Danae and Lamar, we finally arrived home on Friday evening. We were exhausted and ready to be home, but definitely glad we went.