"More Weird Al" or "Something to Post in the Meantime"

This video is from a song Weird Al did as a parody to the Backstreet Boys' "My Way".

I heard once that Ebay had a big conference where they hired Weird Al to sing this and the Backstreet Boys to sing back up for him. .

Good Old Al didn't think he had messed with enough online service sites, or mimicked enough bands, so he had to write this one about Craigslist.

In case you don't know, he is mimicking Jim Morrison and "the Doors".

Thanks for checking back in. I'll be back soon. Promise.

"Search My Blog" or "Does Everyone Know This But Me?"

I have been thinking about trying to find an addon for my blog that would allow people to search all of my blog posts.

Like a blog search engine.

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Then I realized there already is one.

Do you see that little box in the top left hand corner of the page? Right above the "The" from the blog title, and right next to where is says "search blog"?

Let's say that you wanted to look up the blog post where I listed 100 Chuck Norris jokes, or wanted to laugh again at my "maternal instinct" pictures, or wanted to reread the comments from my controvesial post about nutrasweet and diet soda, or maybe you are fairly new to my blog and wondered if I ever posted my Christmas Wish List, just type the topic into that little box, click enter and the marvelous power of the blog will reveal to you everything you wish to see, so long as I ever posted about it.

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I dare you to try it and leave a comment about what you found.

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Did you know you could do this? Am I seriously the only one who didn't know?

"Happy Anniversary" or "How Blessed Am I?"

My Parents celebrated their 42nd wedding anniversary this week.

That's about two thirds of their lives that they spent with each other.

I know that they have benefitted beyond what I can even understand by being part of a happy, loving marriage.

But I have to point out that I have definitely been blessed by their marriage as well.

Mainly, I was born to a mother and father who wanted me and loved me.

I was raised by loving parents who taught me, nurtured me and provided for me, and taught me God's gospel.

I have never known the pain of divorce close to me.

My parents are still together and still there for me whenever I need them. (Even though they are almost never home).

I love my parents and I am so happy for them.

42 years down and eternity to go.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad.

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If you would like to read the post I wrote for them last year >>>click here<<<. It'a pretty good one.

"A Tribute to Grandpa" or "Here, Mom. It's Finally Done"

About my Grandpa

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I have been asked to write a tribute about my Grandpa.

I have been putting it off, partly because I am by nature a procrastinator and partly because I couldn’t decide what to say.

You see, my Grandpa was such an amazing man that there is simply too much to talk about.

I have so many memories of him.

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I was blessed to be able to grow up only a few minutes from him, so I got to see him a lot.

Here are some of my simple memories:

Grandpa hammering a nail through a coconut so I could drink the milk.

Grandpa putting my bike together that I got for my birthday.

Grandpa pushing wheel barrows of dirt out of our basement so we could have more room.

Grandpa coming over for dinner on Sundays.

Grandma feeding Grandpa when both of his arms were in casts from breaking them while playing street football with neighborhood kids.

Talking with Grandpa about serving in World War 2.

Grandpa telling stories in Uncle Randy’s backyard about his favorite horse.

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I could go on and on, but let me share a few more specific memories.

When I was little Grandpa would greet me, and very often my best friend Holly by saying “Hello Fred”.

She or I would answer “That’s not my name!”

He would respond “Oh, I’m sorry George”.

We would say “No, I’m not George”.

This game would go on for a few minutes until he finally admitted to knowing who we were and giving us a hug.

10 or so years later, after I had moved out, my good friend Holly went to see my mom. She was there visiting when Grandpa showed up.

She was excited to see him, and he was excited to see her as they had not seen each other in a few years.

He said to her “Little Holly? Is that you?”

Holly’s face fell and she answered him, “No Mark, it’s me, Fred!”

They both laughed as they hugged each other.

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Another more recent memory happened only a few years ago.

I was in Provo visiting and my Mother had not been able to get a hold of Grandpa. She asked

me to drive to his house to see why he wasn’t answering his phone.

I found him in his garage building shelves. He hadn’t heard his phone ringing from where he was.

I stayed and visited with him for a while.

While I was there I noticed that his couches, which I knew he had had for a while, still had the tags on them.

I loved that he was too busy even at the age of 89 to sit down long enough to cut the tags off his couches.

I said to him, “Grandpa, didn’t anyone ever tell you that 89 year old men are supposed to sit around and watch tv?”

He answered “No, and if they did, I’d tell them to go to hell!”

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I admire Grandpa so much. Enough that I even named my son Mark after him.

He was an amazing man, just as my Grandma was an amazing woman.

There was nothing that Grandpa couldn’t do, from flying an airplane or building a house from the

ground up, to soothing a sad child.

I love Grandpa, and I consider myself blessed to be his grand daughter.

More about Trek

Victoria requested that I tell more about Trek.

There was a lot that happened and I will try to cover the high points.

First, let me explain that a Pioneer Trek like the one we went on is a re-creation of the treks across the country that a lot of early pioneers made about 170 years ago.

We dressed in similiar clothes to what the pioneers wore. Meaning I wore a long dress, an apron and a bonnet. (And NO makeup).

I did get to wear my nikes, and would have worn hiking boots if I had them.

We all met at the church at 4:30 in the morning on Thursday.

There were 6 Ma and Pa couples and about 60 kids. Plus several Leaders from the Stake.

We had to drive about 5 and a half hours to the mountains north of Richmond.

When we got there we were organized into families.

We got 10 awesome kids. Miles, David, Justin, Jared, Elijah, Brett, Amanda, Katie, Nicole and Christine.

We also got an Uncle. Uncle Joe was assigned to hang out with us and help our family.

We initially played a get to know you game and came up with a family cheer.

Our cheer was "Thundercats HO!"

Then we put together our handcart and loaded it.

Naturally our family was done before everyone else, so I taught them all a song while we waited for everyone else. We learned this song:

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I have 2 little hands folded snuggly and tight.

They are tiny and meek yet they know what is right.

During all the long hours till daylight is through,

There are plenty of things for my 2 hands to do.

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I have 5 little fingers on one little hand.

I have 6 on the other I don't understand,

During all the long hours till daylight is through,

I have 1 little finger with nothing to do.

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Then we started up the mountain.

We didn't have enough room around the handcart for 13 people to push all at once so we took turns.

The kids were awesome about taking over for each other and giving each other breaks.

Partway through the day we met up with a general who asked all the young men to join the army.

All of our boys left with them and the girls who were left, along with the Pas and Uncles had to push the handcarts up the hardest hill by ourselves.

When we got all the carts up and turned around I could see all the boys in their blue hats from the army.

That was almost the best part of the day.

The real best part for me was when we finally got to camp.

All the kids helped peel and chop potatoes and carrots for dinner. We cooked them with 2 chickens in dutch ovens.

They were delicious.

After all the families ate and cleaned up we had a camp devotional.

Following that we returned to our family campfire for our family devotional.

I had prepared several things to read around the fire, but because it was so late and we were so tired I kept it short.

I did read them The Jabberwocky, just for fun, then I got more serious and read them the words from "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief". I didn't sing it, I just read it like a poem.

Then we went to bed, girls on one tarp and boys on the other.

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The next day, Friday was the hardest day.

We pushed our handcarts about 7 or 8 miles. What wasn't uphill was downhill. And believe me, downhill isn't necessarily easier.

Our family led the way for a while and we didn't just lead the way, we plowed ahead.

We kicked rutt.

The night before, while we were preparing dinner I had started to tell the kids, "You know, I'm not saying that our family is better than anyone else's, but nobody is better than us."

That became our mantra for the next few days.

I would say "I'm not saying we're better than anyone else..."

And everyone else would say, "But no one is better than us".

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We were very blessed with the food. It was limited and if it got burned in the dutch oven there

was even less, but ours was always good and we always had enough.

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There was another Pa who kept saying "Are you having fun yet?"

When the truth was, at times, no, I wasn't having fun. Pushing an 800 pound handcart up a mountain wasn't necessarily fun. But that didn't mean it wasn't a valuable experience. That doesn't mean I wasn't benefitting from it.

You can work hard and grow even when you aren't having fun.

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But that doesn't mean I didn't have fun. We had a lot of fun.

When we finally got to camp on the second day we were sooo glad to be there.

We got dinner going and set up camp.

After we ate we had a little time before the devotional so I sat around the fire with my family and we sang songs.

We sang "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" in English and Spanish. We sang "Popcorn Popping", both verses, including actions. We sang "Give, Said the Little Stream" with and without the "Give"s.

I even got them all to sing "Ah Too Dee Tah" with actions.

It was awesome.

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At any time all day long, if anyone needed help one of the kids would jump in and help.

Everyone got along, everyone worked together, everyone joined in.

Everyone was awesome.

Some shared their testimonies at testimony meeting. Some shared their testimonies with our family.

I was so impressed with every single one of those kids.

There were some very spiritul moments along with the fun and goofy ones.

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There was another day after that, during which more awesome things happened. But I'll wrap up here, and maybe talk about that later.

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Chris and I are hoping we get the chance in 4 years when they do it again.

It was really a privilege to be a Ma and Pa to those young men and young women. They were amazing.

The whole experience was awesome. I think that we got as much out of it as the youth did.

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-Della

"Crazy Busy", "Handcarts", and "Cub Scouts"

It seems as though I find myself apologizing a lot for not being on the blog. So I'm done apologizing.

But I will try to fill you in on some of my activities.

I spent most of last week driving to and from and supervising Cub Scout Day Camp.

I couldn't be there every day, so several other people stepped up to help out, which was awesome.

CJ is no longer a cub scout, but Mark went for the first time and loved it. Especially the archery and bb guns.

Last week was also busy because J started his summer job.

He is working as part of a summer job training program. So we are having a lot of driving him to and from his job site.

The week before last I was literally cut off from civilization for 3 days while Chris and I went on Pioneer Trek with our stake's Youth Conference.

It was absolutely amazing. We were Ma and Pa to 10 teenagers who completely blew me away with how hard working, fun and just plain awesome they were.

I could devote several blog posts to talking about the Trek, but I don't think my words could do justice to the experience.

It was the most fun I've had working so hard in a long time. We basically pushed an 800 pound hand cart up and down a mountain for about 16 miles over 3 days. It was hard, it was fun, it was spiritual and it renewed my faith in the younger generation. The 10 kids in our family were amazing. Everyone of them worked so hard, pitched in together, and made it a great experience for each other and us.

I mean, I wouldn't go so far as to say that our family was better than any of the other families. But I will say that nobody was better than us.

Chris and I are already hoping we get asked to go again in 4 years.

While we were gone a couple of things happened.

Apparently some singer died. And our house was broken into.

I'm not too worried about the singer, he has a lot of people who care enough that I don't need to.

It did concern me a great deal that when we got home the screen was off the front window and the window was wide open. In addition, my dog Toby was in the back yard instead of in the house.

We called the police and they went into the house before us to check it out.

I think that Toby scared off the burglars when they opened the window by jumping out at them and barking like crazy as he tends to do when anyone comes over, especially if we are not home.

It is my guess that Toby hung out on the porch until a neighbor put him in the back yard.

Regardless, nothing was missing or broken when the cops searched the house.

Oh, and if that wasn't enough to keep us busy both Chris and I have been sick.

But we are getting better and life is either returning to normal or we are adjusting to the new level of crazy.

I'll try to add pics soon.

Thanks for caring and checking the blog.

-Della

Check the Time

If you should wake up early in the morning tomorrow and notice that the time is 4:05, if it happens to be just 6 seconds after 4:05 you should note that the time and date are 04:05:06, 07-08-09.

Just something to think about.