Happy Birthday Dave

Last week was Dave's Birthday. We won't say which one but you can figure it out from the candles if you really care too. It wasn't too exciting except that I took him to lunch, had a yummy dinner of wakiki meatballs and fruit salad. And finished off the evening with a green cheesecake with strawberries (that's what you get when your birthday is on St. Pat's day. It was a little trippy to bite into green cheesecake and taste nothing but good old fashioned (Utah) cheesecake. I really expected it to have a sour taste with the strawberries. The best part was his last gift of the night . . . a big group hug with Caleb and Noni!

End of an Era

This weekend was kind of bitter sweet. It was the BYU-I 4th Stake Conference (Dave's Stake). Elder Gary Walker of the Seventies was the visiting authority. He has an amazing ability to speak for great lengths of time, not get to deep, and make you feel like you can go home and do better. He came not too long ago to the Iona Stake and we have enjoyed listening to him both times. He also asks the Stake Presidency to not "prepare a talk" but speak by the spirit. They all gave excellent talks also. Of course one was a religion teacher at BYU-I and you would never have been able to guess that he had no "prepared" talk. I guess if you talk about scriptures all day you can pretty much wing a gospel based talk with no problem! That was the "sweet" part.
The "bitter" part was that Dave was released. We knew it was a 3 year calling but it is hard to believe that he has been serving up there that long. I haven't been able to be up there a lot but when I have been it is such a neat experience. It is a married student Stake. It is so fun to watch these young couples, see how happy they are and watch them with their little ones. At one point yesterday I glanced across to an open door and saw 6 men standing there trying to settle babies or toddlers. I just think dads today take a more active roll with the babies than my day- that is so cool. It seems you can look at the couples and tell which ones are truly happy and which ones may be struggling, which ones really love each other and which ones are still developing that love. They are so eager to learn and do the things the Lord wants them too.
One young man spoke and told of how when they first came to BYU-I someone gave them a car with over 300,000 miles on it (they came from somewhere in Africa). They drove that car to Maryland and back and somewhere on the West coast and back on faith because they knew they had paid their tithing! Wow, I just don't know if I have that much faith. Another thing that stuck in my mind was that Elder Walker reminded us that the brethren are not "fearing" this time in our Nation. If we set our hearts on the things that matter and have faith we are never alone. This isn't anything new but was another good reminder to me as I watch the news and the stock market!
Anyway, Dave's days of serving in Rexburg are over. *shed big tears here* He is a bit apprehensive as to what is in store for him next. He served for just 10 months as Bishop of our "new" ward after the last division and has been gone from the ward for 3 years. So basically he doesn't know a lot of the people very well. I am excited to have him go to church with me and sit with me, it has been almost 15 years since he has sat with me (2 short exceptions during that time). So... we will just have to see what is next!

My Santa Stud

I am going to pay dearly for this post.

This Summer my nephew ran in the "Spudman Triathalon" in Burley, Idaho. His wife titled the blog about it as "My Spud Stud". When Dave played Santa for the Griffiths family Christmas party I thought I should make a post about it and call it "My Santa Stud". Sorry to steal your idea Megan.

OK, now that you have fallen off your seats from laughter I will continue.

Dave says he wants to leave this life with anonymity, meaning he doesn't want to be on any blog or facebook page. He has even taped over his web cam on his laptop. Well, he has a lot of years of technology driven life ahead of him so I just don't see that happening. I thought I might as well get him started on the path to Internet stardom with his debut as Santa.

I thought he made a pretty good Santa, his cheeks were not quite rosy enough, and he was missing a cherry nose, an of course no pipe. But other than that he fit the Night Before Christmas Santa quite well. He really could have used some suspenders so his pants didn't fall down. We will have to work on that for next year. I don't think anyone heard the story about the hole in the toe of his boot. It was from burning it when he landed in a hot fireplace. And same thing with the patch on the seat of his pants!

Secretly I think he enjoyed it. He was pretty good with the kids, the "too big for Santa ones", the ones trying to pull off his beard, the one with the bottle, the crying one, and the ones that would not say a word! And he even danced, but no Santa Cat!
Thanks Chris for coming up with the outfit. I think the kids really liked having a visitor from the North Pole. Hopefully this will become a renewed tradition at the family party.

Anyway, I guess when you get to be our age and are as out of shape as we are being married to a Santa Stud is a pretty good thing! I wouldn't trade him for anything!