I'm Sorry, I Believe You Have The Wrong Guy

Over the last week, several things had been building that were bringing out my sarcastic side. I was to the point that I was about ready to unleash with a post just snidely and sarcastically commenting on a number of different things that were really getting under my skin. It would have been grand. But events this last weekend made me change my thinking.

Friday night, we finally got away from the Gila Valley and headed for the Phoenix Valley in order to go to the temple. During the day, Abby came home from school and begged not to go. We finally relented and she got to stay home with Grandma Claridge and do her things on Saturday. I only mention this because this is the first trip anywhere where we were down a family member simply because they had other things they needed/wanted to be to. After Shannon was done renting her clothes over this, I told her I wasn't buying her anymore clothes first off, but then we just huddled together in sadness at the growing up of our family.

Anyway, Jerry went with us and we had an enjoyable trip. Once we got there, I ran over to the Apple store and got Abby her birthday present (shhh! her birthday is tomorrow) which is an ipod shuffle. The main reason for this gift is that we are sick of Miley Cyrus and Camp Rock songs on our own ipod as well as the fact that we can never find it anymore because Abby has it in her room.

The next day we went to the temple and made it in time for the Spanish session. I enjoyed that, then we went to the Rapier Family Reunion. It was a little difficult because a lot of the questions we got centered around my mom. Totally understandable, but difficult none-the-less. However, we discovered that Braden is totally taken with Basketball. Got to get that boy a hoop.

After the reunion, Shannon and I finished up shopping errands that we needed to get done. Having not had a lot of sleep the previous three nights and then basically not sleeping the night before, I was about to the point of complete breakdown. I kept trying to pick fights with Shannon and threw at least three temper tantrums in the mall. It was not my most stellar day. I just seemed out of whack and nothing seemed to fix it. Wasn't sure why. Boy if I had only known what was coming.

We finally got in the car and headed home. We got back about 10:15 and got everyone to bed and then got ourselves to bed. We didn't even check our messages....

At 7:00 a.m. sharp our phone rang. I was completely asleep still. It was President Larson of the Stake Presidency. He asked if we could be at the stake offices in an hour. After I said we would be there and hung up, I made sure I hadn't been dreaming and then I turned to Shannon. She was looking at me with that deer in the headlight look of, "What did I just hear you say?" I looked back with that Oh Crap look and without words said, "You heard right!" She said, "What does this mean?"

"I don't know."

"Well, what did he say?"

"Can you and your wife be at the stake offices in an hour."

"So he said you before me."

"Yeah, but that could be because I answered the phone. This could be about you."

"No, no. I am sure this is for you. What would it be."

At that point, the silence was deafening. We looked at each other with a shocked look for about 15 seconds, then we got moving because we were down to about 52 minutes at that point.

By the time we got there, we had narrowed it down to a reorganization of the Stake Young Men's presidency or a vacancy in the Elder's Quorum Presidency. I still had a sliver of hope that it was for Shannon, but I kept that to myself as she was adamant it wasn't for her. We were met by President Larson and he asked to meet with me individually for just a moment first. Dang it, so much for the sliver of hope. I assured him I could accept a calling and then Shannon came in and he explained that they were reorganizing the bishopric in our ward that day and the new bishop had asked if I would serve as his second counselor...........I wasn't expecting that. I am pretty sure I just babbled for about thirty seconds and then was interrupted by President Larson when he said, "So can I assume that is a yes?"

We went home and told the kids and a little while later, Abby asked if she had to give her tithing to me now. I said that yeah, I guess so. She responded, "That is just weird." I couldn't help but agree.

We called our families and they all came, even my mom. Shannon and I must not be included in the ward informational system, because a ton of people seemed to know we were getting a new bishopric. We had no idea. So we kind of were giving something away with all of my family there. But the jig was pretty much up when President Kartchner asked me to stand and presented my name for advancement to High Priest. Then it was just a question of which one was I.

After a short talk about all callings having a release and thanking the previous bishopric, he then called Max Nicholas as our new bishop, with Rhett Dodge as 1st counselor and myself as 2nd counselor. After having just served for four years in the Teacher's Quorum with Rhett, people are going to think we come in a package deal or something. Little did I know that Tommy Nicholas was in the back of the chapel with his finger poised on the send button of his phone waiting to text to Heath the information. Which he then did. Imagine Shannon's surprise when a package was waiting on our porch before she got home from the block with a congratulations on the new calling. They say news travels fast in a small town, but I think it might be getting out of hand.

After sacrament meeting, they ordained me and set us apart and then all of a sudden I was getting called into a meeting in the Bishop's office, getting keys handed to me and being shown how to count the tithing. I couldn't help thinking, "Don't we get a week worth of preparation time." It was just ten hours previous I had even found out about this.

So now, I find I feel totally guilty for being such a pain with my wife the day before, I have to keep my sarcasm in check and most of all, I need to find a suit since I don't even own one. Please pray for our family, we are going to need it.

Living On The Edge Of Reason

Our pictures from Easter. Easter started on Saturday with an egg hunt in Duncan and then moved to Thatcher the next morning. Because of the addition of a dog since last Easter, the Easter Bunny moved his operations into the front yard this year.



I recently have had a couple of downer posts. Because of that, I have worried that I sound like I am a downer myself or am looking for sympathy and because of that, I have wanted to have a fun, interesting post next. Unfortunately, that just isn't working out.

On Saturday, April 10th, my grandmother June Martineau, passed away. This is my mother's mother. This in and of itself is not really a bad thing. She had had Alzheimer's for the last few years and was not doing well. However, we had pretty much assumed that my mom would not be traveling again. This event blew that idea out of the water as my mom was very determined to go to the funeral in Heber, AZ. Fortunately, Jerry has been in Duncan since the 5th of April and was able to help them prepare. I wish someone would have been here to help us prepare. Trying to get my mother out of the car to come into our house proved to be too difficult and painful. She ended up not coming in. It was pretty traumatic for me to see her hurting that much, but it was really hard on my kids. Braden just started walking down the block without asking and when I called him back, he came back with tears in his eyes. I asked him if he was sad because he thought I was mad at him. He said no, just that he was sad it hurt grandma so much just to touch her. That broke my heart and we just hugged and cried together.

Our view from the front door of our motel in Heber.

But, we did make it to Heber and it turned out to be a positive thing. I think it gave my mom's family a chance to say goodbye to her and vice versa. It was a very nice service, but by the end, my mom was done and so we got her back to the hotel before heading over to the gravesite. Because the kids are in school, we wished my parents and brother a hesitant but fond farewell and started home after the luncheon at the church. They stayed an additional night to let my mom recover somewhat.



A couple notes about Heber: It was snowing on us when we arrived. It is the middle of April and it was snowing. I am just saying.

Heber is not a big place, but very pretty. However, when I went on-line to see our hotel options, it was pretty much the Best Western or...it was pretty much the Best Western.

Spiffy looking boys. They looked better than their father even. At least for the first few minutes after getting ready.

I always find myself wondering what brings certain people to certain places in their lives. I live in Thatcher, but I grew up 45 miles away in Duncan and I married a Thatcher girl. It is somewhat understandable. The hotel owner was East Indian and had lived in New York. I didn't ask, but the thought kept coming back to me every time we entered the lobby and smelled curry. How did you and your family end up in Heber, and where do you find curry?

Last Saturday, Rhett Dodge came over and we trenched our front yard for a sprinkler system. This, of course, involved more manual labor with a shovel on my part. I am woefully out of shape and there is nothing like a day in my front yard to remind me of it.

This is our current view of the front yard. Someday...Someday!

Lastly, this weekend was Stake Conference. Timilee Brown's parents, Jay and Diane Layton, spoke as he has recently been called as Mission President for the Rapid City South Dakota Mission. They gave excellent talks and they will do an awesome job. Conference was outstanding and we are glad we had made plans to attend the temple this coming weekend because the whole conference was about the temple and being there and not finding reasons not to be there. You get the point.

We have a Rapier family reunion this weekend as well and we look forward to a slightly more upbeat post after that event.

Pulling Off The Party Of The Century

This last week has been absolutely crazy. About three months ago, Shannon decided that with her grandmother, Maxine Layton, turning 83 this year, it was time to throw a big party. We all look forward to those major milestones of 16, 21, 30, 40, 50 and 83. Right? I just kid. Shannon's rationale was that when you start putting an 8 at the beginning of your age each year, you better celebrate now regardless of how healthy one may be, because there is no guarantee for the future. So, she sent out the word and got all of her grandmother's descendents to commit and the date was set for April 3, 2009 in Thatcher, AZ. The truly amazing thing about this party was she managed to get 34 people here from all over the country (southwest part anyway) and still keep it a secret from Maxine. But before we get to the party, let us digress:

This is the face of surprise when Maxine arrived for her party.

The week leading up to this has been exactly what one would hope for if you are planning a major social event. Sunday started with Kate puking twice and blowing out not one, not two, but 5 diapers with nasty diarrhea. I stayed home with her and we prayed she would get over it. She did, eventually. By Wednesday, she was feeling better. However, in that time, both Shannon and I had come down with nasty throat and ear infections. Good times. Add to that a nice middle of the night puking from Logan and we were in great shape to host 30 people.

But it all worked out by Friday, and the party looked great. Maxine showed up and was completely surprised and very shocked. She cried, we cried (I didn't cry. I never cry. I don't care what Danica thinks she saw during Elder Holland's talk today.) and we had a fantastic evening. Everyone remarked yet again how amazing Maxine is at 83. I think she has more energy and get up and go than I do. Of course even she is no match energy wise for her new 93 year old boyfriend, who unfortunately was on a cruise with his family and couldn't make the party. To wrap things up, we watched a video of pictures and Maxine telling her life story in her own words. It was a fantastic evening.


That would be Abby under all that toilet paper during the toilet paper mummy game. I'm not sure the title gets the essence of the game.

The next day while the family basically hung out and went to lunch at La Casita, Lamar and I braved the winds and played in the hospital's fund raising golf tournament. There is nothing like playing golf in 30-40 mph wind gusts...all day long...it never let up...in fact...it got worse the longer we went. Highlights from the day included:

Reuniting with an old flame. My 3 wood and I had not been on speaking terms for a couple of years. But we got together again and we wondered how we ever let things get so wrong.

Free Soda. It wasn't Dr. Pepper, but it was soda. Lamar was in seventh heaven because the Pepsi was free and they kept it flowing.

Arnold's joke in the restroom. I won't repeat it, but I know Lamar will get a good chuckle remembering it as he chuckled about it all weekend.

Free Brawts for Lamar and I. Shannon would consider this a low light, but oh well. (This actually led to a conversation later at the house on foods that Shannon thinks are disgusting.)

Lamar draining a 20 foot putt on the last hole to win between the two groups who were playing together. Ok, officially we tied, but they bought a mulligan and used it to take off one stroke. We went mulligan free and still pulled out the tie. So we win. This goes back to basic tie rules as established during the UofA streak in football over ASU when they won 9 consecutive years. They actually tied in one of those games, but in that game, ASU just needed to punt and they would win. But instead, the punter muffed the snap and UofA scored and tied the game. Sorry, that is a UofA win, just like our golf round.

Lamar between shots and blinding wind gusts. When are they going to move here so we could play golf and have fun any time we want? I realize it is a rhetorical question, but I ask it nonetheless.

That night, after the priesthood session, we hung out and enjoyed each other's company and then Shannon and I stayed up until 1:30 with Cody and Danica just visiting. My goodness how we miss them.

The family all left today and we are back to normal life tomorrow. But WOW, what a weekend and congrats to my wife for pulling off an amazing surprise party.

So Where Are We Now

Well, to finish a thought from last post, this past weekend was most enjoyable. Heath Brown and I traveled to Mesa and met up with Spencer Bigler, Preston Bigler, Cody Claridge, Scott Carnes, Danny Barney, Lamar Echols and David and Jillian at the Buffalo Wild Wings for a full day of basketball, laughs and good food. (I know when Shannon reads this, she will laugh out loud at me calling Buffalo Wild Wings good food. Not her favorite.) The day started with just me, Heath and Cody catching the end of the Arizona State game. They won and in honor of the win, they held a Super Shot contest on the little Super Shot basket. I am proud to say, I won. I am also humiliated to say...I am proud I won. But you have to take pride in whatever small things present themselves. However, I got over the humiliation quickly as the prize was 18 free wings. We got started on our road to heartburn early. The rest of the evening was exactly what you would expect it to be, including one moment where Spencer made an inappropriate joke and all of us were crying from laughing.


This is a before shot of our yard. I hope to be able to post an after shot within a month or two.

After arriving home at 12:30 that night, I got up the next morning and with the help of Clinton and Rhett Dodge, I leveled out my front yard in preparation for a new sprinkler system and sod. A couple of questions from this: When did we start having 90 degree days in March? How much dust can someone inhale before they should start thinking about a trip to the emergency room and how did everyone let me get so out of shape that digging in the dirt for 5 hours came very close to killing me? Wait, don't answer that last one as I am sure the explanation will include something about Dr. Pepper and I am not ready to have that conversation.

It was a highly productive and fun weekend. Unfortunately, as we learned with our Disneyland trip, everything really positive in our lives right now is generally tempered by a negative sobering reality. Just before we left for Disneyland, my mom was complaining of a lack of strength in her right arm and leg. When we returned just one week later, she could no longer use either one. When we went to visit my parents Sunday night after our weekend, we were stunned to find that my mom could no longer talk to us. Sometimes when you learn something bad is coming, you think you are ready only to find you completely aren't. I believe that would best describe my emotions in this instance.



Which brings me to the last thing I wanted to mention. Through all of this, but especially since February, my wife has gone beyond her normal amazing spouse status, all the way up to saint. She has shut down her schedule and gone to Duncan several times to help my mom write letters to each of my kids. Because of work, I was not able to and now doing that would be completely impossible. My mom said she wanted to tape herself reading some books to my kids. Shannon dropped everything and went the next day. Ironically, it was just six days later that my mom couldn't even tell me how she was doing. I am a very lucky man. I can't say enough about how much I love and appreciate Shannon. As we continue to navigate this path we are currently on, I know I can count on her for anything and everything. And you know? There is no way to adequately thank her. I wish there was. But at the moment, I will at least say Thank You Sweetheart! You are the best!

The pictures on this post are just some random pictures from our last few weeks.

It Should Be A National Holiday

When I was on my mission in England, I once saw a billboard of a doofy looking guy with nappy long blonde hair in what appeared to be his wedding photo. The caption next to the photo said, "Best Day of My Life? No Way! United Lost To Nottingham 2-0." I don't know why that billboard sticks in my mind so well after all these years, but I have always thought it was clever. It has also come to be a little representative in my mind of my early dating experiences with Shannon. That poor, wonderful woman began dating me in the month of March. In fact, we just had the 14th anniversary of our 1st date on March 10th. What she could never have known but quickly learned, is that part of the package that is Ryan Rapier is an acceptance that March is a special month. A month where normally important things get set aside for the greater good that is the NCAA Basketball Tournament, otherwise known as March Madness. The fact that we stayed together and eventually married despite the fact that she had to compete with the tournament during our first month of dating is really quite remarkable. It is funny, because I don't watch sports a lot. In fact, as far as being a sports widow, Shannon has done pretty well. But that all changes with the first tip on the third weekend in March.

She may have thought it was just a ridiculous phase that would pass once we were married. However, that first March of our married life (two months into wedded bliss) she learned otherwise. She had to put up with my friend Preston being at our house almost two full weekends in a row with both of us basically ignoring anything she said. This only got worse the next year when UofA made their national championship run. At least she learned to invite her friend Becky over as well so someone would actually listen to her and carry on a conversation that didn't go something like, "What would you like for dinner?"

(Silence)

"Honey, what would you like for dinner?"

"NOOOOO!!!"

"You don't want dinner?"

"Huh?"

"I was asking what you wanted for dinner and you basically said you didn't want any."

"What are you talking about?"

"DINNER! Do you want any?!?"

"Hadn't thought about it. Whatever you want to...YESSSSSS!!! ...What were we talking about again?"

She had to go to bed several times alone while I stayed up and finished out the day's games. She missed some really great games by the way, but when I tried to describe them to her, she didn't seem that interested. However, she was a good sport and at least tried to sound interested at first.

Finally after a few years, we just accepted our short separations and I would go off and watch games with some friends at a sports bar. She is a saint for letting me do this.

So, tomorrow, I will leave her alone again and head down to Mesa to hang out with the same friends and watch basketball at a sports bar for about 8 hours straight while drinking way to much soda and eating chicken wings that will give me heartburn like I have never experienced before. I know this because each year I get older and the heartburn gets worse. We will ruin some waitresses night because we will order no alcohol and sodas have free refills thereby killing her chance at a good tip from one table for the entire day. We start out the day geniuses for our astute basketball knowlegde in picking the perfect bracket. 8 hours later, I will throw that same bracket in the trash because it is a testament to my stupidity about college basketball. In other words, I will experience a sort of heaven on earth that comes around just once a year. I can't imagine why everyone doesn't want to do this. So, I officially wish everyone, everywhere, A truly Merry March Madness Day. May all of your bracket predictions come true. Unless you are in my basketball pool in which case, may your weekend end in a horrible twisted wreck of despair.

Disneyland Journal, Part 5. I Stayed Up Til Midnight Which Is 1 In Arizona Time

As we have covered most everything that a family does on a trip to Disneyland, this final chapter will not be as detailed as the last four. In fact, we will not do the time of day or any of that, we will just include pictures and a few interesting (at least to us) stories from the trip's final two days.



Friday for lunch, we decided to go and eat while watching one of our favorite shows at Disneyland, Billy Hill and the Hillbillies. If you have never seen this show, it is hilarious and even though the show is pretty much the same every time, the main guy is good enough that you keep coming back time after time. Anyway, it was getting pretty crowded and so this nice family asked if they could share a table with us. When the husband asked where we were from, Shannon told them Thatcher, AZ. She overheard just a short time later the husband tell the wife that we were from Thatcher, you know that place where Spencer Kimball was from. We are thinking they were Mormons



We finally made our way into Innoventions in Disneyland which is a very large building that spins around. When we got inside, we realized the entire top floor is video games. I'm surprised Braden isn't still there.



That night, we got with Danae and Lamar and family and hit all the big rides together. We got Logan to agree to try Splash Mountain again as long as he could wear Shannon's sweatshirt to keep him from getting wet. He loved it and went twice.



We stayed at the park until about 11:30 p.m. As Braden was still letting us know what time it was locally as well as AZ time (Yes, he kept it up the entire week) he was very excited to let us know that he was going to stay up until Midnight and that would be 1:00 a.m. Arizona time. Not sure what was so exciting about that, but it he let us know this fact no less than 20 times leading up to and then after the actual event.



The next day we went to California Adventure for a short time before heading home. Our last ride of the trip? Soarin' Over California. Greatest ride ever. We even got them to let us ride on the top row. To end our trip, we went back to the hotel and kept a promise we made to our kids from the minute we had arrived and had lunch at IHOP before leaving. My kids must love pancakes because that was almost as impressive to them as any Disneyland ride.

After another 13 hours in the car and another night spent in Prescott, we made it home. It was nice to be home and in our own bed. But even before the day ended, the comment was made that we wished were back in that magical place. But then I promised Shannon I would try and wait for a few months at least. And since then...Logan has begged to go back just about every day since. I think he was impressed.

Big Love? Big Deal!

For those who are breathlessly awaiting the conclusion of our Disneyland series (I'm sure there are many), I hope to get that done on Sunday. But in the mean time, I had some thoughts that are just bouncing around my brain that are causing me to not concentrate. So if I write them down, then maybe I won't dwell on them as much and can move on with my day. Here goes:

For those who haven't heard, the HBO series Big Love, about a polygamous family in Utah (Shocker, how come they never have the polygamous family in Rhode Island? Just a thought), is airing an episode that will fully show the temple endowment ceremony. I am not crazy about that. In fact, I find it highly offensive. But several well meaning LDS members have started on-line petitions to boycott HBO, AOL and Time Warner. The Church has taken the stand that they are just basically going to ignore it because to do anything else would only give it more attention and that is the last thing wanted. I can't help but wonder what those who want to start a boycott hope to accomplish. First, asking Mormons to boycott HBO is probably akin to asking the National Organization of The Lactose Intolerant to boycott the dairy industry. I mean how many LDS families actually subscribe to HBO in the first place? Second, isn't there already a national boycott underway against AOL due to the fact that they SUCK and have sucked for the past 15 years!? Finally, an LDS boycott of Time Warner would probably be similar to the Southern Baptists boycotting Disney in the early 90's over the priest's knee being confused with another body part in "The Little Mermaid". After a few years, they called off the boycott and Disney's response was; "Oh, were you gone?"

Now please understand that I get the "it's the principal of the issue" argument. I really do. I guess I am just suffering fatigue from the amount of "it's the principal of the issue" issues that are out there. I seem to get an e-mail every other day or so telling me about another thing I should avoid or a petition to sign. Some I act on and others I take more of this kind of approach. When I look at it logically, I figure no more than 5 million people will see "Big Love". (Personally I believe that is probably stretching it.) That is less than 2% of the American public. Of those two percent, about half probably fall into the category of HBO viewer who believes if a scene doesn't have something naked or bloody in it, then it must be time to get more Cheetos. So with those kind of numbers, I believe the relevance of this whole thing only gets raised when LDS folks rise to the bait and bring it more attention. I believe that is what the producers were and are hoping for by showing it in the first place. By next week, I'm sure 98% of Americans will never even know what happened and another 1.5% will have forgotten. So to HBO and the producers of Big Love I say, is that the best you got? Then Big Whoop!