10/9/16 Stake Conference

     Today was the big event. We webcast Stake Conference to 2 buildings plus the overflows at the Stake Center. We had reason to be grateful for a backup stream. The service provided by the church was not up to the task. Thankfully our backup provider, Ustream, worked well enough. Only one of the two buildings was using the church feed when it went down 20 minutes in. Jae estimates they missed about a minute while switching to the backup. The other site started with the Ustream and stayed up the whole time. The thought came to me that when I watched the General Conference feed it glitched a few times. If they can't get a glitch free stream with the best gear available we should feel pretty good about only one glitch. 

9/26/16 Stay Focused

      Today I felt very distracted. Still, I managed to have our regular meeting at Empire and get a few work things off the list. 

     For FHE we watched some videos that showed how people were able to give service to refuges in their community. Apparently Arizona is one place that has welcomed refugees. One of our friends is organizing a service project to furnish a home for a refugee family. We decided that we will look through the things we've been blessed with and share some with this family. Hopefully we can be a help in some small way. 

6/20/16 Handyman

     This morning Heidi surprised me by asking me to help with a couple of home improvement projects for her parents. I almost asked her for two forms of ID. Usually she loves these types of service. I think that Peter did not sleep well last night and Heidi needed some rest. 

     The first task was to install two solar powered outside lights. 

      The second task was to install a closet door. Heidi's dad had already purchased just the right sized door. It just needed to be assembled and put in place. Gratefully both tasks occurred without injury. Hopefully each thing serves them well. It was fun to try something new. 

     After the projects were done it was time to come home. My usual meeting fell through so, after working a bit, I was able to join the family and go swimming. I remembered the other day when I wasn't feeling like swimming and chose to stay home. I ended up really regretting that decision. I decided to learn from my mistake and go. It was fun spending time with the family. The opportunity to go doesn't always come up so when it does it seems like I should take it. The kids won't always be little. 

6/10/16 Sarah Sits a Tree

      Sarah has taken on the duty of caring for Gram and Papa's pine tree. We made it to 430 before 7 so that we could water while the temps were in the 70s and 80s. The high today was "only" 104 so not as bad as the 118s of the weekend. Still, not exactly comfy either. 

      While there Sarah noticed that the little cactus is growing. Here are a couple of pictures for scale. 

    With 430 cared for we headed home in time for the kids to head to Music Forte. Today was a dress rehearsal. The kids are excited about the shows tomorrow. There will be a matinee and an evening show. Heidi and I are looking forward to it as well. 

     This afternoon I got a chance to serve at the cannery helping make syrup for needy families. My very rough count was that we made over 1600 bottles in the couple of hours we were asked to serve. It felt good to lend a hand. They gave each of us a bottle of syrup as thank you for our service. I got to ride with Ron Rock, our High Priest Group leader. He is a wise man and I appreciated getting to spend some time visiting with him. I am trying harder to listen more and not be overly chatty. This is not easy for me but I feel that it will help me learn many things I do not yet know. 

4/15/16 A Little Devine Tech Help

      This morning I went out to a client meeting with the Alcantars and Michael at WAP, one of the up line brokerages. It was a good meeting for getting on the same page. Sal had me drive his truck back so he and Ange could ride together in the minivan. That allowed me to have a good chat with Michael. 

      This afternoon the fam and I headed over to the Stake Center to set up conference. We were having tech trouble when Jae asked if we had started with prayer. I had forgotten to. We stopped and prayed and almost immediately I was able to identify one of the problems. There is still some work to do to fix things but now we know what the problem is. So grateful for prayer. 

       Heidi was a great help with both the kids and with tech. She is a wonderful blessing in my life. 

4/13/16 A Successful Test

     This morning I went to the Temple. I felt like the place I was supposed to be. As I walked up I remembered that I was out of family names to take through. Just then a man coming out of the temple stopped me and asked if I would do a family name for him. It made me feel like Heavenly Father was watching over me and knew where I was. 

      While I was there Bob and someone from FM fixed the Internet at Des Moines.  Tonight we retested the webcast and we are good to go. 

     I also got to help Brian Jensen with wireless mics and a projector for the YW Camp Kickoff. That's always a big production and this year was no exception. They had a funny skit involving princesses explained why camp is so great. So fun for our stake young women. 

12/16/15 Think Tank, Clone Drives

    Today Sarah came home with a poster she made at Think Tank. She explained that it is like a mini gifted and talented program for second graders. We are proud of Sarah Mei for studying so hard. 

     Today TJ was not feeling well so we kept him home from school. Before long he started feeling better so we held on to him for a while to make sure he was really ok. He and TJ and Joseph went with me to the three buildings in our stake to work on my technology calling. Joseph absolutley refused to wear pants so I had to take him as he was. They were both big helpers. Joseph relented and let me put pants on him when I told him he couldn't go to preschool without pants on. 

     This afternoon David helped me create clones of older hard drives onto the newer solid state drives. This will allow the older machines to perform better. David is getting to be pretty savvy around a computer. 

      Sadly, this evening TJ relapsed and Heidi and David both started feeling ill. That completes he circle. Now everyone in our family has had a turn. Hopefully now we can move on to feeling better.   

12/13/15 Seeing Things Through a Kid's Eyes

     This morning as we prepared for church one of the kids pointed out that Peter had found a new "chair". It was an end styrofoam peice from one of the boxes of stuff that came for my calling. Some of the other kids decided this was a good idea. 

     Here is TJ is his. In the corner those are Joseph's feet. What a lot of fun they had with something that no longer had value to me. 

     This evening Sarah played some Christmas songs for us on the piano. It was a fun treat. Her piano teacher Mary kindly loaned us her book of Christmas tunes at the girls level. 

     A funny Sarah story from this weekend. The kids watched the original movie version of Annie. Sarah commented "it's a good thing that the girl from the old movie had red curly hair and the girl from the new movie had black curly hair. Otherwise you couldn't tell them apart." Dear sweet Sarah. I'm sure that they do look otherwise the same to her. 

     Heidi did some more Scoutbook training for some leaders in our ward. 

     The kids went with me to trouble shoot the Stake computers. My friend Trevin is moving next month to Virginia. Good job for him but bummer for us. He has been a great help to me with computer stuff in the stake. We'll miss him. 

      This little video is a time lapse that I just finished from our trip to Arches. It's not at all professional looking but we learned a lot doing it. It is amazing to be able to see the stars move. This is something that is hard to notice while you are there because it happens so slowly.

12/5/15 Christmas Program, Christmas lights

     This morning was our ward's Christmas breakfast and Primary Nativity  Program. 

     Here are David and TJ both dressed as shepherds. 

     Sarah was a Shepherd as well. 

     Rebecca was cold. 

     The kids all sang very nicely. This afternoon we helped hang Christmas lights at Grammie and Grandpa Mangum's. Peter wanted to help me on the ladder. 

     Here is how it turned out. 

     We also did some cleaning at the church and installed another monitor. Another busy day. 

12/4/15 Peter Peanut Butter and Rebecca Reader

     Peter decided that he likes peanut butter. Luckily Heidi spotted him before he made too big a mess. 

     Today Rebecca came home with a medal. It was for becoming part of the word millionaires club. She has read books this school year totaling over a million words. They also have a multimillionaire club. At the rate she's been reading she could hit that mark as well. She celebrated her accomplishment by reading another book. 

     In other big events today we went to the Alcantar Christmas block party. They trucked in ice that was ground into "snow" for a sledding hill. The kids had great fun. They all would have liked to stay longer but we had another project to do. 

      Next up was to install new monitors at the Stake Center Family History room. Heidi came up with a way to upgrade all the monitors in the stake for the same price as we had planned on getting monitors for the new computers. The stake president and his wife stopped by as we were working. They both seemed pleased by the improvement. (She is over family history in the stake). The kids were very patient waiting for us to finish. We are blessed with some pretty great kids. 

11/23/15 Helping Hands

      Peter is a social baby. He has come to a good family for that. We have learned that he can be well fed and clothed and rested and still be sad because he is lonely. 

     Today David was a big helper with Peter. David attached a tie down strap to the little car and pulled Peter around and around the yard. Peter was so content. Heidi and I were a little nervous when the car got a little too fast. To quote Thomas the Train "luckily no one was hurt". 

      In the evening we went grocery shopping as a family. Then we left a Turkey on the doorstep of a family we know. Hopefully it makes Thanksgiving a little brighter for them. 

11/12/15 Humanitarian for Heidi

This morning Heidi went to Humanitarian. She really enjoys the camaraderie of the women serving and creating quilts and other crafty things together. Joseph loves playing in the nursery. Peter even does pretty well there too. I tagged along and did some work on my Stake Technology calling. Our next big project there is to upgrade the family history centers. There will be plenty of work to do between now and the start of the new year. 

11/6/15 a short visit to Gram and Papa's

This morning Heidi and I and Joseph and Peter went to visit Gram and Papa and Becca B. We did some tech support and Papa and I have Gram a blessing. Poor thing has a tooth ache. 

     This evening we got a head start on setting up for conference. There's always a long list. This time I made a Wunderlist. It helped me keep track of everything pretty well. I will likely do this again next time.