From My Small Window

I don't know if the fact that so many of my posts lately have taken on a more somber note is a reflection of a maturing and deepening trend that I am experiencing or if I am just slipping into a nasty depression that threatens to engulf my very being. I guess only time will tell. But I apologize upfront if this post is on the down side. Sometimes it just works out that way.

Have you ever had to (or just did whether it was warranted or not) discipline a child pretty severely to the point that they are crying and everyone is upset? It is probably one of my least favorite things about being a parent. Especially if I look back and realize that my actions were actually more than the infraction called for. Anyway, more than once, I have been coming down on one child and another child will begin crying for their brother or sister, even though they are completely not involved. They will beg for mercy for their sibling even if the sibling is being punished for something they have done to them. It is one of the tenderest and yet most gut wrenching things to have happen to you. At least to me anyway. I mean I feel so thrilled that my one "innocent" child is feeling such compassion for their sibling and yet if the punishment or lecture is justified, it has to continue. If it isn't justified, I stop and feel like a complete idiot. But that isn't my point. My point is that the one child doesn't understand what is happening fully and sees only the pain being felt by their brother or sister. It doesn't mean they stop loving me. Just in that instant, they want the unhappiness or pain to stop because it seems so unjustified. Today, I feel a little like that other child.

A good friend of mine has three young kids. One of them is special needs. A couple of years ago, his wife was diagnosed with cancer. They had treated her and all was well. Until she felt ill last night and went to the Emergency Room. The cancer has returned and it has spread. I haven't spoken to him and I don't know the prognosis, but it sounds eerily similar to what my mother experienced and so my experiences have taught me this will not end well.

And here is where I struggle. I know all the platitudes about our trials making us stronger and each person has things they need to learn in this life, but seriously, I don't get what the hell good it does for those kids to lose their mom. I don't get it now any more than I got it nine years ago when my brothers-in-law lost their dad just as they were facing their trying teen years. From my limited perspective, it seems so unfair. I also know all the doctrine and realities of families being sealed together and the strength we are supposed to derive from that knowledge. And I am very thankful for it. Without it, an extremely difficult situation would quickly go to paralyzing for me. But the hard facts remain that faith and strength don't have arms to hold anyone with. I look at my daughters and realize my faith would come up way short when it comes to facing life. They need their mom. I mean really need their mom. I am so inadequate. But there are so many daughters who don't have that luxury. And I don't understand why. I hope someday I do. Because I don't mean to be flippant here, but that would be the eternal equivalent of not being given answers to certain aspects of Lost after devoting six years to it and just being left with "figure it out yourselves." I will be highly disappointed should this be the case.

Ok, now that I have gotten that all out, I need to follow that up with how much I have been blessed by the same God I am expressing some frustration with. I have been blessed far beyond what I deserve. And I wouldn't even say that I am frustrated with God, just frustrated by my perceived inequity of it all. Maybe I am feeling guilt. Because at this point, I don't have to deal with the issues my friend does. I fervently pray I never do. It is similar to my feelings after 9/11. I mourned and expressed my sorrow for all of those who were lost, but secretly I thanked God that it wasn't me or my family or anyone we knew. And because I felt that way, I felt guilty. I didn't love my fellow man enough to be willing to take their pains for them. I would have run from them.

Which, I guess, coming full circle helps me gain a greater appreciation for my Savior. He was willing and He did.

I don't have a pithy ending for this post. I don't have a statement that ties it all up nicely with a good little moral lesson for us all to ponder on. There are too many emotions at play for me. This news coincides with a small and insignificant event that took place last night. I had out some photo albums and Kate opened them. There was a picture of my mom and Shannon said, "Look, there is grandma." Kate looked at her confused, because grandma is my mother-in-law, not my mom. This news today taps into one of my biggest fears regardless of which side of the coin I would fall on. It is just almost more than I can bear. And if I feel this way, why should he and his wife feel any different. The difference is, they have to deal with the realities, while I only have to deal with the possibilities. I will have nightmares about this. I always do.

I Hate Kobe Bryant...Bless His Heart

I have heard from several people that you are allowed to say whatever you want about someone as long as it is followed up by "Bless their heart!" I am sure that is probably faulty logic, but in this case I am going to use it.

Tonight, we get game 7 of the NBA Finals between the Celtics and the Lakers. To understand why I even care, you must understand I lived and died by the Celtics during high school. I was an unapologetic Larry Bird fan. While girls would be writing their first names in a note book followed by the last name of whatever boy they were obsessed with at the moment, I would be just as secretly writing the names of the starting five as follows:

Larry Bird,F - 33
Kevin McHale,F - 32
Robert Parish,C - 00
Danny Ainge,G - 44
Ryan Rapier,G - 34



I believe my record for most Celtics shirts owned at one time was 4. I have documented previously that I nearly broke my hand during a Celtics-Pistons game by punching a brick wall. (SMART) I just loved the Celtics.

Well, if you grew up in the '80s and loved the Celtics, that meant you by default, HATED the Lakers. And I did. I despised Magic Johnson and his stupid little grin (ok massive grin). I thought Michael Cooper pulling his socks all the way up to his knees made him look like an idiot (although I have a similar picture of me in junior high with the same fashion selection. I choose to forget that.) Kareem was a doofus in those goggles and anybody who wore glasses like those Kurt Rambis wore deserved to be pummeled in the face repeatedly just as an example to others. I was a tad strong in my feelings.



Fortunately, I have matured since that time. I have let my life's interests include more than basketball. I have mellowed in my disdain for players on teams I don't root for. I had pretty much transformed myself into a live and let live peacenik when it came to rooting for professional basketball. (Ok truthfully, I pretty much stopped watching NBA basketball regularly for the last 20 years.) Then came Kobe Bryant.

Kobe Bryant came straight out of high school and told everyone that he wanted to play for the Lakers. It didn't matter who drafted him, he was playing for the Lakers. That irked me.

Over the next several years, nothing was too bad because he was just part of the Lakers team that I still hated, but was not getting too worked up because of my new zen-like approach to NBA basketball. I will never like the Lakers, but no player was worth HATING!

Then came the split between Shaq and Kobe. I got irked even more because he appeared to be a spoiled little brat. Oh well. But it just got worse. He once got upset with the media dogging him about hogging the ball all of the time so he refused to shoot the ball for an entire half. IN A PLAYOFF GAME! They lost. I really started to dislike this kid.

Then there was the rape allegation. Regardless of guilt or innocence, when he bought a $4 million ring to make everything ok with his wife, I started to slip into despisement.



Now, I just hate him. I hate the way he makes shots he shouldn't that are just incredible. I hate that he is so good. I hate that stupid face he makes when he wants everyone to know that he is intense. It is his, "Hey look everyone, I am now intense" face. It makes me think of a woodchuck. Look at the picture. I now call it his woodchuck face. I hate that he tries to pretend to be a great teammate while everyone is watching while the reports just continue to flow in about how lousy of a teammate he is. I just don't like Kobe Bryant.

It has brought out a side of me I thought I had been able to supress. It isn't pretty. I look at the Lakers and see Pao Gasol. I mean come on, try just a little bit to fight the stereotype of non-hygenic european and appear to bathe occasionally. Then there is that jerky little Russian dude who forgets we aren't playing the World Cup and flops on the floor like he was shocked by a taser gun at the slightest bump. Oh but if he gets called for a foul? We need to call Matlock because no one has ever been more wrongfully accused than this guy. AAAAAGHHHH!!!! Then there is Ron "Why don't I go into the stands and start a riot" Artest. Enough said. I find that because of Kobe, I hate these Lakers as much if not more than the '80s Lakers and I didn't think that was possible.



So tonight, even though I do not have anywhere near the attachment with anyone on this Celtics team as I did to that group that played in the '80s, I pray they win. Unfortunately, I know they probably won't, but I sure hope they do. Seeing Woodchuck Boy holding the trophy again is enough to make me swear off NBA basketball for another 20 year.

Things I Don't Understand

There are just some things in life that defy explanation. You try, but it just isn't going to make sense. Recently, we have experienced some of these things and I share them with you now.

Sonic Drive-Thru Math

We in the Rapier household strive to be honest. It isn't always easy. And sometimes the lines on honesty can be gray. For instance, when we moved into our house, we called the local cable company and requested high-speed internet and the most basic television package (13 channels, most local). We lived with this set-up for about 6 months and continually had issues with the internet going down. We called several times and they would come to fix the problem and yet the problem remained. Then one day they came...and magically all was well. About two weeks later, we asked my brother-in-law Clinton to babysit while we attended the evening session of Stake Conference. We came home to find him watching ESPN (not part of the 13 channel package). In my euphoria at what I was seeing on my television screen, I blurted out, "How...Howww...How did you make this happen?"

Clinton looked at me kind of funny and said, "I turned the channel to ESPN."

We thought it might be some kind of promotion so we lived with it for a couple of days and then we called the cable company. Again, we really try to be honest. We reported that we had free cable. They said they would take care of it. About a month later, we tried again and phoned them to report our free cable. I mean, we reeeeaaalllllly try to be honest. After that, we gave up. I suppose if I wanted to be honest beyond belief, I could send extra money each month with my bill or call them weekly to report my free cable, but instead I have chosen to take the approach that at some point, I have done my due diligence. I mean, we cut the cable last year when we were putting in our new sprinkler system and they came and fixed everything up and nothing changed. We are going on five years now. Add to the fact that I have grown addicted to Psych, White Collar and, of course, Sportscenter and really I choose to believe they must not be able to fix my problem. No really, I do believe that. So we co-exist as we do.

Anyway, I share that only to back up my claims that we try to be honest, but we do have our limits. This leads me to our Sonic experience. They have started a summer promotion where you buy one milk shake, you get one free. Even on your next visit (in the form of a coupon). So it is Monday night, we think that is a pretty good deal for the whole family. Normally I would not share that Shannon had already been there earlier that day and so everyone was getting a second shake except for me who felt totally robbed and wanted a shake of my own. But in order to fully understand the story, I have to share that. Because, Shannon told me that her cost earlier that afternoon was $5.39 so if I only had $8, I might be cutting it close. Imagine our surprise when they let me know that my total bill was $5.29. Keep in mind, my order was exactly the same as Shannon's earlier except that I had added a large shake bringing the total number of shakes to 5. Think that through folks. Buy one get one free works best for those with an even number. Let alone, how did we get it cheaper. Well we figured that part out. The promotion is not supposed to include the specialty shakes, but Shannon, always one to accept what she is told, asked if she could have a specialty shake even though she knew it wasn't part of the promotion. They said yes. I, being so concerned about honesty, would never have done that, but I digress. So we are getting 5 shakes (by the way, I ordered a large while the others all got regular, just as they had done earlier. It had something to do with I didn't get one earlier and it wasn't fair so I ordered a large...yadayadayada. Not important, except that it was a full large shake above the order placed earlier that day) for $.10 less than before. I pull up to the window and tell the girl working that I am not sure she charged me correctly. She looks at me funny and shuts the window. A minute or two go by and the window opens and she states that I was right, I had been charged incorrectly and the price is actually $4.79.

I am literally stunned at this point. I get out my money and she hands me the first shake along with the receipt. We get all the shakes in the car and I ask again if she is sure because it appears on the receipt that I am not being charged for the large shake. She takes the receipt, closes the window and goes to talk to who I can only assume is a manager. They converse for a moment or two and she comes back, opens the window, says again that my cost is $4.79 and gives me change from my $5, my receipt and a coupon for a free large shake on my next visit to Sonic as it is a buy one get one free promotion. Some might say that a truly honest man would have parked the car and walked in and demanded that the correct course of action be followed. Me? I rolled up my window and drove away enjoying my shake. I mean, I really tried.

Graduation Happy

Don't get me wrong. I truly enjoyed attending Logan's graduation from pre-school a couple of weeks ago. It was awesome and all of those kids were just cuter than heck. If you don't believe me, check out the pictures. But really, I don't get the graduation thing from pre-school. Ok, I do get it, it is a photo op for parents. But still. They don't really do much. They all get a diploma regardless of how much they paid attention or actually learned anything. The only thing they really remember are the field trips and the experiences where something disgusting happened...You know what, I am wrong. Pre-school graduation is totally legit. I just looked at my reasoning and realized that I could just as easily have been describing most high school graduations. GO PUBLIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA!!! (I realize the irony based on my Prop 100 stance listed below. To my public school teacher friends, I blame the parents.)

Anyway, Logan graduated and was very proud of himself. His teacher read some quotes from the kids and Logan was responsible for at least three of them, including his public declaration that he is going to marry Molly (Brown). My little boy is growing up and headed for Kindergarten next year. I wonder how mom is going to do with that.







Humane Fishing

One thing that makes no sense to me at all is the idea of promoting Catch and Release Fishing. Let's examine. We take a few thousand fish and put them in a lake. We then turn a bunch of human beings loose on them with anything from worms to a unique invention called Powerbait (I cannot for the life of me figure out what is appetizing about that stuff to a fish. It stinks and is flourescent. While that is a great description of my daughters dirty clothes, it shouldn't be a good description of food.) So these fish then eat a meal only to have the meal jam itself into their tongue, throat and or cheek and jerk them mercilessly through the water and out into an environment where they can't breathe. Then some huge entity jams metal pliers into its mouth and removes the gosh awful hook and then tosses it back into the water to be humane and let the fish live so it can go through this whole process again in a couple of days. If I survived treatment like this a couple of times, I can only imagine the fun my therapist would have with my fear of food issues.

As it happens, we in the Rapier clan felt that was just too mean so when we traveled to Alpine yesterday to go fishing, we went with the much more humane "Catch, Release and watch the fish convulse until dead." This is not a commonly advertised approach. (To be clear, this isn't the approach we were trying to take, we just apparently are very bad at Catch and Release Fishing. We tried very hard to help our fish live, but they did not want to play along.) But we sure had a great time. Trip highlights included Braden catching two fish (he was the first one to catch anything), Kate puking in Mule Creek and us realizing we didn't bring any extra clothes, Logan making Shannon follow him up the hill to the outhouse not once but twice and a great dinner to cap it off at the Alpine Grill. Memorial Day was good.

Below we have placed some pictures from this event as well as pictures of Logan's three stich gash on his forehead, Logan losing his first tooth, Abby's team winning 2nd at the knowledge bowl and Braden getting his Bobcat at his first Cub Scount Pack meeting. Busy month.

What Does It All Mean?

It has been over a month since I last posted anything. That doesn't mean anything, it is just an observation. I chalk it up to the fact that I think every LDS member in the Gila Valley put their life on hold to a certain degree while we experienced the Gila Valley Temple open house. To say it was a once in a lifetime experience would not be giving it enough credit. It was incredible. It was life changing...and yes, it was thought provoking.

I am struggling today with thoughts of just who am I and what do I really believe. Not theologically, but rather how I would categorize myself in the world around me. (At this point, I can hear people saying, "My gosh, the last post and now this? Did Ryan join some meditative hippie commune? Not exactly.) My problem is, I have always been a right of right idealogical conservative. It made every decision I had easy. But today, in light of some soul searching, I am finding things aren't that easy anymore. And the really scary part is, I don't know that they ever were.

My favorite show Lost is going to end in five days. (Hang tight folks, we are going all over the board today.) At this point, after all my praise, adulation and fawning over this show, if you haven't started watching it yet, you probably aren't going to. That is your spoiler warning. So some thoughts on it. The character that is representative of a Christian philosophy of good has a belief. He believes all men have an inherent bit of good in them and that given time, he will find human beings who will choose goodness over evil. His counterpart believes that is pointless thinking because all human beings are corruptable and inherently evil. The main problem is, the evil being is willing to get in and mix it up with the humans while the good counterpart believes if he interferes, then the whole exercise was pointless because people have to choose goodness for themselves, not be forced or coerced in any way. With a few tweaks and changes this is how I believe God works with us. The unfortunate part is that there are many day to day issues that on first inspection seem very easy to say what is right and what is wrong and take a strong stance for what I believe to be good. But upon closer inspection, is it God that actually told me which side to take in an issue? Does God even have a side? Or is it as I have come to believe that God is saddened that so many of our national, state, community and family issues have come to the point that they have. That free agency got us into this mess and now we have to use free agency to get out. And lately, largely due to my experiences at the temple open house, I have come to believe that God really doesn't care about most of the issues of our day. He still only cares about one thing. And it is the same thing that would consume my every thought if I sent my children away without a guarantee that they would return. Just get them home. From that perspective, I share my thoughts regarding two issues that are at the forefront of my mind today.

Arizona is voting today on a proposition that would raise our sales tax. In my life, I have never supported a tax increase that I can remember. By my principles, I probably shouldn't have supported this one. Without getting into the specifics of how we got here as a state financially, the state has real issues with its budget. If the proposition doesn't pass, major cuts to education, healthcare and public services will be greatly affected. Now in a perfect world, the state would come to me and I would offer my great sage advice and instruct them on how to fix the problems without having to raise taxes. We could consolidate school districts, we could do away with the double dipping that takes place with educators retiring and then going back to do the same job in essence collecting two salaries and the list goes on. But that isn't reality. The same goes for healthcare and public safety. The reality is, if it doesn't pass, many people I know will likely lose their jobs. Two of the three largest employers where I live are EAC and the hospital. Both would be majorly impacted along with all of the other school districts, the county, the towns and cities and prisons that keep our local economy going. I understand and accept the argument that factoring in those things would make my decision emotionally based. That is true. But for me, what I keep coming back to is this: God gives us all trials. So does that mean I should stand strong in my principles and allow those trials to come to those I know? Or is this my trial? Do I stand strong with my ideals that in theory if government is denied the extra money they will do the right thing? Or do I succumb and support giving extra money to a government that will undoubtedly spend it incorrectly? At the end of the day for me, it has come down to what can I do that will help my neighbor. I know this sounds awfully preachy and I apologize. It is not my intent to have my thoughts become anyone else's. In the spirit of full disclosure, the impact of prop. 100 not passing could affect my job. I have had assurances that it won't, but it could. Mainly, this whole issue has been weighing on my mind and needed an outlet to express my thoughts on it fully. I do not claim to have the right answer. And I am sure my view is full of holes, but to me this isn't really the point to what I am saying. The point is this: I have for too long assumed that my political philosophy was completely in line with God's. This whole process has caused me to question that somewhat.

The second area where I am finding my thinking being challenged is with Arizona's new immigration law. Fundamentally, I have supported it. I personally don't believe it will ever see the light of day, but I have been in favor of it. And like many others, the more people who aren't here make nasty judgements about us living in Arizona, the more firm my conviction about this law became. That was until I read this:

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/05/18/20100518arizona-immigration-law-mormon-church.html

I can't say that I have ever had one article so swiftly and profoundly change my view on an issue. If you didn't read it, I highly encourage you to do so. Nothing has changed my belief that the Federal Government needs to take a more active role in securing our border, or that citizens in Arizona need to be provided safety and security. However, if this law is being perceived by anyone, who would otherwise be interested in joining Christ's church, as threatening, it isn't worth it. Even if it is only one. The worth of the soul is great and so if one individual is kept from baptism because of a law, right or wrong, fair or unfair, it isn't worth it. I recognize that it doesn't change our problems. Illegal immigration causes a massive depletion of our state funds. (See Above Paragraph) Violent crime continues to be of grave concern in our neighborhoods. Working in the hospital environment, I am aware of the great drain that illegal immigration is causing on our healthcare. But what is really important? I now believe we have to find another way. I don't know what it is. I don't know that any idea will ever be met with support that doesn't cause this same issue. And if so, then we have to find another way. Because we have to take care of what is most important first. Bringing God's children home, one soul at a time.

I don't expect everyone to agree with me. I don't expect hardly anyone to agree with me. To be completely honest, there are times I don't agree with myself on this. I just go back to what I felt and what I saw of those who attended the temple open house. It just brought home to me what is important. I don't even pretend to live it everyday, but I am trying to wrap my arms around the idea of approaching each day and each issue with the idea of what really is most important. We'll see where it gets me.

Thankful

You know, it's funny. Life can get going so fast that you forget just how much the Lord takes care of you. The above picture is of my flower bed that I put in the front of our house. Each year I plant some flowers in it and some from previous years show up unexpectedly. Every year, I am amazed how beautiful flowers are. I am sure many of you who know someone in the Gila Valley have seen pictures of all the poppies and natural flowers that are in bloom right now. It is truly beautiful all around our valley. But I am always drawn to my flower bed because I like to plant red flowers. The rose bush is a mini rose bush that my mom gave to Shannon several years ago. When it started, it was about 1/6 the size but has grown each year and in a few weeks will be covered in roses. The other little flowers that are everywhere else, I just think they are awesome. I bought some three years ago and they flourished and so I bought more. To my amazement, they survived the winters and come back bigger and better than ever so I bought more and included different colors. Now I hardly have anything else in the flower bed. None of this has anything to do with anything. I just am mesmerized by these blossoms. However, this year because they have all bloomed and cover the whole area, for some reason it has made me reflect on a few things regarding how blessed my life is. And so now I will share them with you.

When I was a teenager growing up in Duncan, I hated Thatcher. They were so good at everything and they knew it. Confidence (smugness, massive ego, whatever) just oozed from them. I remember getting the feeling from visiting Thatcher sports teams that it was almost an inconvenience to have to lower themselves to come to such a podunk place as Duncan. How I despised them. But let me be fair, I also very much wanted to date some of the female thems. I am not going to lie, Duncan boys actively day dreamed about Thatcher girls. A lot. But of course, we knew they were too stuck up and wouldn't date us anyway so we hated them too. Then, I graduated and headed to EAC and met many of these people who I had so actively despised and discovered something about them and about me. There were a lot of good people from Thatcher. I became pretty good friends with several of them. Yeah, they could be a little cocky. But I also discovered that they viewed Duncan as really pretty hostile. Looking back, I can see that. Anyway, I discovered I couldn't have been more wrong about Thatcher. But even more, I realized that my dislike of Thatcher really stemmed from a desire to be a part of a community like Thatcher. In my mind, they had it all and I resented it. When I was at EAC, I started to realize this and changed my position to wanting to be a part of Thatcher. I was 17 at the time. Of course, I hotly defended Duncan at every opportunity (having a mascot called the punkin rollers in your history implies that you will have to defend yourself a great deal. Duncan also did themselves no favors by then changing to a mascot with a misspelled version of Wildcats. Yes the K in kats differentiated us from Morenci, but it did set us up for ridicule at the same time.) and I still do. When Shannon and I attend a Duncan/Thatcher basketball game at the EA tournament, I will root for Duncan. I have to. And I will until I have a child involved. In college before my mission, I made a stupid bet that Duncan's football team would beat Thatcher and the loser would have to stand and sing the opposing fight song in front of the whole EAC choir. Of course Duncan got 42'd. Did I learn anything from this? Not really because I made the same bet after my mission and...Duncan got 42'd again. Not my finest hour. But I really grew to love my association with people from Thatcher.

Where am I going with this? Despite me forgetting much of this and completely giving up on ever living anywhere in Arizona besides Mesa or Tucson, the Lord never forgot. I have been so blessed to marry one of the most wonderful women ever who just happens to be a beautiful blonde Thatcher girl. I live and serve in the bishopric of THE Thatcher 1st ward. As previously documented I have even had the pleasure of dipping my toes into local Thatcher politics. The Lord has blessed me to have everything I ever wanted when I was a 17 year old kid. And now as I get ready to turn 37, it is still everything I ever wanted.

I hope my Duncan family and friends don't think I have forgotten where I came from. There is a beauty and stillness in Duncan you can't find in many places. It will always be my home. But my daughters will be the blonde Thatcher girls I always admired. My sons can be those cocky jerks...wait never mind. Bottom line, none of what I have described will ever mean anything to anyone like it means to me. It may not even make sense to anyone reading it. But when I looked at my flowers the other day and had this realization, it was a testimony to me that the Lord wants to bless us with our desires. Especially if they are good desires that will better us as people. I feel I am a better person because of the friendships and bonds that I have formed here in Thatcher, Arizona and today, I am grateful for his blessings.

The other thing my flowers made me think of is how beautiful life can be when you adhere to what is right. Non-sports enthusiasts are going to roll their eyes at my next analogy but hang with me here. This last weekend was the Master's Golf Tournament. All eyes heading into this tournament were on Tiger Woods and how would he perform after all of his life issues off the course. As it turned out, he spun out of control starting on Saturday and could never pull it together to do well on Sunday. But the truly amazing story was that of the eventual champion Phil Mickelson.

Up front, I am sure Phil is not perfect. But I have enjoyed being a fan of his for a while now especially due to a few similarities that have occured in our lives. Now please don't think I am going all stalker on him or anything. I know our lives are very different. His ad revenue is currently doing fine and my ad revenue is limited to anything I could make off Trades and Sales with William Perry. It is just that his first daughter was born right after ours was. I remember the 1999 US Open when he wore a beeper on the course so that he could walk off at any time to be there for the birth of his first child. I was holding a two month old Abby watching this tournament unfold. As it turned out, he lost the tournament on the final putt by Payne Stewart. Pretty devastating loss, but definitely made up for with his new baby. For some reason, I just felt a bit of a bond with him at that point. Five years later, he was constantly dogged for being the guy who couldn't win a major tournament (The Masters, The US Open, The British Open or the PGA Championship). At that point, I was feeling very down about myself as well because despite being a pretty smart guy, I couldn't get a job that required much of me and that I could support my family on very well. In 2004, he won The Masters. As silly as it may sound, it inspired me to know that sometimes, you have to be patient (Great talk by President Uchtdorf by the way) and trust in the Lord to take care of you. That same year, a way was provided to have Logan come to us with insurance in place to pay for him and then within a few months we were on our way to Thatcher.

This last year, Phil had his wife and his mother diagnosed with Breast Cancer within a month of each other. My mother also was diagnosed with cancer. Fortunately for him, both have been given good outlooks for the future. Unfortunately, my mother did not. However, I can't imagine going through what we went through with my mom while at the same time worrying about Shannon for the same reason. Anyway, this tournament was going to be the first time Phil's wife would be able to travel with him to a tournament since she started undergoing treatment. I was rooting for him big time. As it played out, the big story regarding Tiger was what it was, but the symbolism of Phil Mickelson standing by the 18th green hugging his wife with tears running down their faces couldn't have provided a bigger contrast. Had Tiger won, his wife was not there to greet him. His children were no where to be found. Because of choices he made, Tiger could have won and it still would have been an empty victory. Phil could have lost and still walked off victorious. It made me so very thankful for my family. And I am back to the same point, the Lord has given me so very much that I probably don't deserve. Each day, whether I win or lose, I go home to a group of people who consider me a winner (and believe me I have come home feeling like a pretty big loser sometimes). I know the Lord loves us. I know he loves me. And I believe sometimes, he likes to provide symbolism for what is important in this life and what isn't. I even think he would use a golf tournament if the opportunity presented itself.



I don't know if any of this made sense to anyone. I don't really care. It made sense to me. But for those who just want a few good pictures on a blog and not so much non stop yakking, I present some recent photos taken at the Rapier Reunion held in Mesa on March 27th.

Spring Is In The...(Achoo)... Air

I love spring for so many reasons. First and foremost, being in Arizona, the weather is just about as amazing as it gets. This leads to what is called Spring Fever which hits Thatcher, AZ pretty hard. It is not uncommon during this period known as Spring Break for half the town to literally disappear. If you think I am joking, I got a call last Thursday during Spring Break from a Phoenix newspaper wanting a quote from us regarding recent cuts in healthcare spending in Arizona. I am not joking when I say that I panicked just a little bit because four of the five administrators were out of the office and the only one left was the HR director who would normally not comment on this. I share that just to emphasize how dead it was here last week. Unfortunately, one other side effect of Spring for me is severe hayfever. When hayfever hits for me, it feels like someone snuck into my bedroom during the night and stuck a small tube up my nose and then filled my head with that tire sealer stuff which then takes the entire next day to slowly drain out through my nostrils only to have the whole process repeated the next day. That was a pleasant visual wasn't it. Anyway, our family did not get to have a "vacation" this spring break, but we did do a few things.



First off, my kids discovered the park in Solomon. First of all, this little hamlet (I use this word because I can't think of any other way to describe it. Can You? I am open to suggestions. "Ghost Town Where People Still Live" seemed a little harsh so hamlet seemed my next best option.) outside of Safford can only be described as quaint. (I am putting my PR skills to work here pretty hard. I guarantee the next time you are looking up real estate listings and you see quaint hamlet and you are familiar with Solomon, you are going to run for the hills.) However, it has one of the best parks for kids at their school. They have one of the only proper merry-go-rounds in town and my kids love it. So they got to go on Wednesday and promptly begged to go back Thursday where I met up with them after work. I immediately got the job of pushing the merry-go-round as fast as I could get it to go. I looked back fondly on my days in primary school where we would play for hours on the merry-go-round. Then as the thing went faster and faster, I started to feel a bit queasy just watching them and remembered that I am 36, not 6 anymore and had to walk away. We followed our park experience with a trip to La Paloma. It was the first time we had been since they reopened and it was good. However, that 36 thing cropped again as I just can't eat unlimited Mexican food like I used to. Half way through the amount of food they brought me, the cheese and grease started to get to me and I just had to stop and walk away. Great beans and rice though. Kate was very impressed.











The next day, the family travelled to Mesa to go to Bounce U. What a place Bounce U is. Imagine a kid having a birthday party where his parents rent the bounce castle. Now times it by 10. Not just the bounce castles but the kids as well. That is Bounce U. No, it really is a fun place and it was Logan and Kate's first time to get to go. They bounced and slid and...bounced and...well you get the idea. They absolutely loved it. Even Kate, who we were worried about because of her size in comparison to the toys and the other kids did great and had a ball.





As always, it ended too early but then the family was off to the temple to visit the grounds and see the Joseph Smith movie. Everyone enjoyed it but our sweet Braden struggled at the end. He is so emotional and couldn't understand why people would be so mean. I still don't have an answer for him.

Anyway, an absolutely great day. The kind of day no father would ever miss, right? Wrong!! Dad couldn't be bothered to do that stuff, because it was the annual March Madness first weekend gathering at Buffalo Wild Wings. So while the rest of my family was making memories to last a lifetime, I was eating wings, yelling at large screen televisions as my bracket imploded worse than a supernova and trying desperately to master the Super Shot basketball game over in the corner. It was good times. It was good to see friends I haven't seen in a while and just hang out with fellow members of the male gender watching sports and eating unhealthily (real word?). As usual it ended all to quickly. Already I am looking forward to the third Friday in March next year.

Once we all returned home, Shannon and I felt the need to address a problem that had been building in our home. We were seeing a truly crippling case of halfassitis gripping our children. (If you say it all as one word it isn't cussing.) Maybe some of you have experienced this in your own homes. Your children are assigned tasks and they will set off to do them only to return a short time later telling you they are done with said task. You go and inspect and see that in reality they are either not really done or standards for a completed job have gone way down since we were kids. Anyway, it was getting out of hand so we had to take drastic measures. We took both kids' iPods and told them they were going to have to pick 10 songs and 10 songs only to have on their iPod. All the rest of the songs currently on their iPods were erased. Then each day, they could earn back two songs if they completed their chores to our standards. If they had to be called back once to complete something after they said they were done, they would earn no songs for that day. If they had to be called back again, they would lose a song for each time they had to repeat a task. I don't know how any of this would work for anyone else, but so far, we are having much better results with the cleaning of our kitchen and bathroom. I suppose we will ride this train as long as it runs.

Finally, I don't know how many people are familiar with the Conventional Wisdom thing they have in Newsweek every week (at least I think they still do), but if you aren't, you will get the gist here pretty quick. Just a quick synopsis of my opinions of certain random things. I always wanted to do this...so now I am.

American Idol - Down Anytime a show is spending this much time talking about the judges and the personal drama surrounding them, it may be time to call it quits.

Fablehaven and The Hunger Games - UP Best literary finds this decade. (I am aware of just how old the decade is. Why do you think I am so confident making this statement?) Both are "teen" fiction, but extremely well written and truly gripping. In fact, reading "teen" fiction actually gives you a little more confidence in the language, sex and violence content. I read the sequel to The Hunger Games in less than 30 hours and was so disappointed when it was over, I read it again on the spot.

Tiger Woods - Down What else needs to be said? Except maybe MORON!

Media Covering Tiger Woods - WAY DOWN! What else needs to be said? Exactly, so stop talking about it.

US Healthcare - Down Unless you support the recent Healthcare bill that passed in which case I would add, Pharmaceutical Drugs For Symptoms Of Delusion - UP

(Although I have to agree with my extremely liberal co-worker who was actually in Washington D.C. last week during all the protests. She was walking amongst the protestors trying to keep her mouth shut when she saw something that she just couldn't let pass. A woman on a scooter with a sign that said, "Keep government out of my healthcare." My co-worker stopped her and asked, "Who paid for your scooter?" Her reply, "Medicare." I don't think the woman got the irony.)

The 1 cent sales tax proposition in Arizona - UP Without it, Arizona just might have to ship children living within 100 miles of it borders to neighboring states for education. For those on the Southern border, hope that Mexican education is up to par. Although history regarding the Alamo might be different there.

EAC President Mark Bryce - Down I'd be willing to bet he has had better weeks.

New Gila Valley Arizona Temple - UP Reports from Rhett Dodge who has been working on the glass inside and out says it is absolutely beautiful inside.

2010 NCAA Tournament - UP/DOWN I absolutely loved all of the thrilling games with several upsets. My bracket absolutely hated all of the thrilling games with several upsets.

Last Season Of Lost - UP The best show on TV is just getting better with this week's episode about Richard being one of the best episodes of the entire series. Although, I have to agree with columnist Bill Simmons who pointed out a real negative about Lost. If you are into it and you are talking about it around people who aren't, you sound like a complete idiot. I mean you sound like a 4th grader talking about Smoke Monsters, polar bears on tropical islands, flashbacks, flash forwards and flash sideways. It really is good and not as...I mean it isn't as crazy as it sounds...Kind of. Please don't think I'm crazy, or worse yet, something akin to a Trekkie. I'm really not! REALLY! It is just so good...Ahh screw it. Best show on TV and if you aren't watching it, it is just your loss. (How many times has saying that made us feel better?)

Verbal Shorts

As is the case with most of my posts, I have a hard time keeping them short. Here is hoping you don't age like Kate did in this picture while reading.

I Never Explain Anything

The opening line of this short is my absolute favorite line from the movie and stage musical "Mary Poppins". I have started using it with my family on many an occasion. Abby will ask for a song to get downloaded to her iPod and I will say no. She will ask why not. (in your mental picture of Abby asking for said song, add an intense whining as if the inability to have this song will result in her being caught on a conveyor belt moving slowly toward a rock crushing roller thing with no way to get off the belt because you are being attacked by a very large Thuggee thug. Once you have this in your mind, you will get the correct mental picture of what it sounds like to have Abby press you for a new song for her iPod. Also, if you didn't get the reference about the conveyor belt, you are down five points on your 80's movie icons trivia challenge.) As she continues to push for why she can't have said song, I now no longer have to explain why. I just reply, "I Never Explain Anything!" It doesn't make the whining stop, but I get a bit of joy as the words sink in to Abby and she stops short for just a moment before launching again. That moment is awesome. It however does not work so well when I am asked by my lovely wife to do something while she is away from the house and I neglect to get it done. She will ask why I didn't and I will respond, "I never explain anything?" She will let me know that is fine, but there are plenty of other things I never have to do again either. So my use of my new favorite phrase is a work in progress. (In fairness to my family, some (one) of my examples are a combination of several events combined into a fictional account so as to give readers a sense of reality. For instance, many of the instances I would have used the phrase with my wife occured in my brain without actually taking place in real life. I may not be the smartest guy, but I am not suicidal nor overly crazy about sleeping on the couch. But know that I have thought about using the phrase many times.)



Anyway, all of this has very little to do with what I am actually supposed to write about which is our family's trip to Tempe, AZ on Feb. 11 to see the Broadway touring production of "Mary Poppins". This was our kids' first opportunity to see a play like this and so they went with excitement, but also a lot of questions, like, "Why do we have to wear nice clothes?"



Shannon and I grew excited as we neared our Alma Mater of higher education and were proudly pointing out things that carried no interest whatsoever for our children. It took me back to our family's vacation to Colorado when I was about 11 or 12. My parents had lived there for a while and so we spent a week seeing things that held great memories for them, but reminded me of...I don't know...every other apartment complex I had ever seen, or the 20 other industrial parks that we could have visited in Phoenix without the 10 hour drive in the back of a truck with a camper shell on it. Did this stop me?...Heck no! I continued to point things out to an uninterested audience with amazing vigor. However, once we got to Gammage Auditorium, they were pretty excited.



Once inside, we had to wait for the inner doors to open for quite a while and the excitement turned to boredom pretty quickly. But eventually we got in and sat down to enjoy the show. That is until the gentleman with the seat next to mine showed up with thirty seconds to spare before the curtain opened with not one, but two bags of potato chips...AAAAAAUUUUUGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! We were in a balcony and had we not been six rows up, it would have been a bit of a struggle to fight off the urge to just try and toss him over the edge. If that wasn't bad enough, as...not a little bit before...as the curtain is going up, he suddenly remembers that he needs to call someone on his cell phone and wish them happy birthday. Not the quick, "happy birthday, I gotta go." kind, but the, "I was thinking of you. Happy birthday, I love you. Blah Blah Blah." kind. Take that and then add to it that the people directly behind us decided that bringing a 1 year old to a three hour musical is a really good idea, and suddenly those people throughout history who are guilty of genocide started to sound somewhat reasonable to me. I mean, if the kids at Voldemort's orphanage had these kind of manners, suddenly the whole Harry Potter series takes on a different feel for me.



Anyway, despite those items (which my kids didn't even notice anyway) the play was so awesome that we were sucked into it and forgot about all the other things that were going on around us (with the exception of the armrest WWF match I was having with potato chip guy throughout the play. I always just give up on that when I go to the movies or a play and end up sitting uncomfortably to one side the whole show. Not this time I said, and I didn't give an inch the whole night.) Logan even loved it and Abby seemed transfixed through the whole production. It went a little long for the two boys, but amazingly, we didn't lose either one to sleep. Overall a definite success for a Rapier family outing.



One last item. It was funny during intermission (well it was actually funny in hindsight, not actually during intermission) both boys had to go to the bathroom. Gammage severly needs to update their restrooms. Braden had to poop (of course) and so we couldn't use the urinals. There are no lights over the stalls and so it was literally the experience of pooping in a cave. He was slightly frightened. I felt really bad for the guy in the next stall, because anytime anyone shifted in any of the three stalls, his stall door would fly open and he would have to frantically try to get it shut in the midst of his business. Again, laughed about it afterward, tried not to cuss during.

Nightmare On 1st Street

Abby has been of the opinion that she is into scary things. Movies, books, tv shows...you name it. So we had a conversation several weeks back over dinner regarding movies and their plots that were scary. I was enjoying it, as were the kids, while Shannon was sitting there just praying that anything up to and including a smoke monster coming through our front window would happen to cause a change in the subject. (For those unclear on a smoke monster, you clearly have not been watching this season of Lost. Too bad for you, suckers!) She had recently seen three of the four Indiana Jones movies, (Any guesses on which one we won't let her watch?) and so she thought she knew what scary was. One movie that came up during the conversation was Gremlins. She thought that sounded pretty cool. So fast forward to about a week and a half ago when she and I went to Blockbuster and found it on the shelf. She demanded that we rent it. So we did. If you haven't seen Gremlins, it is a bizarre little movie with just enough of a horror element to have freaked me out pretty good when I was her age, but not enough to tramatize me. Shannon wasn't allowed to watch it. Anyway, that night we put it on after the boys went to bed. Shannon and I were sitting there thinking how badly this movie had aged when the part where the gremlins get created and start wreaking havoc arrived. After about 10 minutes of that, we turned it off because she needed to go to bed. So we look over and she is completely freaked out. We asked if she was ok and she really wouldn't answer. So I asked if she wanted to actually watch the rest of the movie later to which she replied, "Um...I don't think so." It was kind of funny to watch her but we couldn't laugh because we didn't want to embarress her. So we used the opportunity to explain the difference between thrilling movies and horror movies and how she should probably avoid the latter. I think she was in total agreement with us at that moment. Let's hope it sticks.

Braden's Birthday and Baptism

Our son Braden has hit that magic age of 8. Don't worry, despite the temptation to go into a long drawn out discourse on how old I feel, I won't. For his birthday, he wanted to do something with his friends that was near and dear to his heart. That means playing the Wii. So Braden had a Wii party. Take a moment and think back to when you were 8 and what you would have thought if someone had invited you to a Wii (Wee) party. I just chuckled when I thought of that. Anyway, below you can see the cupcakes he took to his class with Miis on them and then his birthday cake at the party. Congrats to Shannon on a job well done with the cake. We borrowed a Wii from the Lees and the boys had a blast. A very successful party under the belt for Shannon. Many congrats dear.





Due to Stake Baptisms having become the norm, Braden then had to wait a week for his baptism. On this most special day, how did we let him celebrate? We had him pick up dog crud all morning. We believe in the school of hard knocks at the Rapier house. No, Braden's baptism wasn't until 2:00 p.m. and so the whole family spent the morning in our backyard doing clean up work. Braden's job was to take care of the fact that he and Abby had not been very effective in their poop scooping duties over the last couple of months. It was a pretty big job and despite some early major unhappiness, he did a good job getting the outhouse aspect of our backyard taken care of.





Later that day, he got himself completely ready in his church clothes without being asked. We went to the church and got him all ready. His friend Jacob Bauman was also being baptized that day. It went very smoothly and there was a special spirit about the meeting. Congratulations to Braden on his decision and on being just a wonderful young man we are proud to have as a member of our family.