"I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee . . . "

Oooh, he stung me!

I was rushing to get the lawn mowed before it rained . . . again. And in my hurry I decided to forgo the shoes and Mr. Bumblebee introduced himself to my foot.

I was rather rude and quickly made my exit to the house. Ty took care of the stinger for me and then he said goodbye to Mr. Bumblebee and obliterated him.

I haven't been stung since I was a kid and thought the pain would subside rather quickly. The pain went away eventually, but now I'm dealing with an itchy, swollen foot.

I hope it goes away soon. I've got a race to run next week.

Chocolate cake, for breakfast?

Bill Cosby Narrative

My wife woke me up 4:00 in the morning. She said, "I want you to go downstairs and cook breakfast for the children." And I looked at the clock and I said, "Dear, it's 6:00 in the morning." She said, "Exactly. Go down and cook for the children. They have to go to school." I said, "Yes, but to eat at 6:00, isn't that bad for your stomach? I mean, they just ate twelve hours ago." My wife said, "Bill, get out of that bed and go downstairs and cook breakfast for your children!!" I said, "Well, I don't know what they want to eat." She said, "It's down there! Now you get out of the bed!"

The first one down was the four-year-old. The child looked lovely. Cute little face, clean. Hair in little braids, little things, you know. "Good morn', Daddy." And I said, "What do you want for breakfast!?" The four-year-old has the ability to see through and find the wrong thing. The child saw through my body what was behind me. She saw the chocolate cake. She said, "Can I have the chocolate cake?" And I said, "Chocolate cake, where?" She said, "Chocolate cake behind you." And I looked... and there was chocolate cake! The child wanted chocolate cake for breakfast! How ridiculous! And I said... and someone in my brain looked under chocolate cake and saw the ingredients: eggs! Eggs are in chocolate cake! And milk! Oh goody! And wheat! That's nutrition! "What do you want?" "Can I have some chocolate cake?" "Chocolate cake coming up." Sliced it for her and served it. "Now, you need something to drink with the chocolate cake, something breakfast... grapefruit juice!" So I give the child a glass of grapefruit juice and chocolate cake --- nutrition. Eggs, milk, and wheat in the chocolate cake. And... I didn't have to cook. And the other four came downstairs. And when they came downstairs... Those of you who have children, you've seen them come downstairs for school. And they got to the kitchen. They saw the four-year-old eating chocolate cake. And they said, "Dad! Where did she get the chocolate cake?" And they went to the child and said, "How did you get chocolate cake?" She said, "Dad give me chocolate cake!" And they looked at me and said, "Father... could we have chocolate cake?" And their father said, "Chocolate cake coming up!!" Four slices --- and grapefruit juice! And five children sat at breakfast and the morning music was playing and they were eating chocolate cake and singing songs to me: "Dad is great! Give us the chocolate cake!" And we had a ball until...

And so this morning, on this last day of school, I fed my kids chocolate cake. I sense the beginnings of a long-lasting tradition.

I'm grateful for . . .

Where I live!

Ty and I were living in downtown Salt Lake City eleven years ago. I was commuting 15 miles to work during the day and Tyler was working nights only several blocks from home at Fidelity Investments. He was driving a 1980 Honda and I a 1991 Geo Prism. We decided to consolidate and give the Honda (affectionately named Ralph) back to his Uncle Medardo who knew of a kid who could use it.

Nancy and Medardo live in Lake Point, Utah, a place west of Salt Lake. I mean west, west, west of Salt Lake. [As a side note, I did work with a girl in Logan who was from Tooele. But I didn't have a clue where that might be.] They invited us out for pizza and we delivered Ralph. As we left that night I told Ty I felt like I was coming home. I loved the country and the small town atmosphere was so different that where we were currently living. I told Nancy I was moving out there some day.

Fast forward a year and we were in the market for a home. Kiersten had joined our family and Erik was quickly on the way. I knew we couldn't stay in our one bedroom apartment any longer. In our searching we decided to take a drive out to Tooele County. As we drove through Stansbury Park, we decided there was no way for us to afford it. It looked to ritzy for us (I have to laugh now at that thought). Tooele was too far and Lake Point didn't have any homes.

As I perused the classifieds one day, an ad for a home in Magna jumped out at me. It said nice neighborhood, family friendly, quiet street. Magna became home for 5 1/2 years during which we met many wonderful people. There are good people everywhere. The back of our house was to an open field for quite awhile, but along came development and every morning I would wake up and look out my kitchen window to see if the neighbors were having Frosted Flakes or Wheaties. That was just a little too personal for us. Ty put our house up for sale several days after I gave birth to Ashlyn and 2 1/2 months later we were in our new home in Stansbury, seven years after my original prediction.

What brought on this lengthy treatise was I went running this morning. My route took me out through Erda which is sparsely populated and just to the south of Stansbury. It reminded me a lot of running at home in Ferron. The birds were singing, the crickets were chirping. There wasn't a lot of traffic. My heart was a little full as I took in all of the beautiful sights and smells. You just wouldn't find this in Magna. I love that a mile from my neighborhood home I can find the country. Yes, Heavenly Father does love me.

Whenever I hear the song of a bird or look at the blue, blue sky,
Whenever I feel the rain on my face or the wind as it rushes by.
Whenever I touch a velvet rose or walk by our lilac tree,
I’m glad that I live in this beautiful world
Heavenly Father created for me.

He gave me my eyes that I might see the color of butterfly wings.
He gave me my ears that I might hear the magical sound of things.
He gave me my life, my mind, my heart; I thank him reverently,
For all his creations, of which I’m a part.
Yes I know Heavenly Father loves me.