UTE Conference

DEEDS: Two Weeks ago July 15-17 was the Winchester VA Stake Youth Conference. The theme of the conference was Serve Strong, Become Stronger. It was the best youth conference I think I have attended. From the time we arrived they had everyone assigned to work on service projects. It was not a typical one hour clean up trash and were done. We spent Several hours assigned to the National Park Service at a civil war battlefield clearing trails, rebuilding fences, and cleaning trash on the side of the road. We were able to wear the "Mormon Helping Hands" vests as an official church service project.

So we had approx 150 people in these yellow vests descend on the National Park. We had lunch then went out and worked several more hours. It was extremely hot and humid the whole day. The wonderful thing for me was to see all of these youth between the ages of 14 and 18 work outside the entire day and being of such good cheer. I can honestly say I heard no complaints, bickering or whining the entire time which is amazing considering that the age group and the work involved. After the projects were done they had everyone go directly to the KOA for swimming, mini-golf and other fun activities. I played mini golf with the Stake President...

The rest of the weekend was lots of the same. Many more hours of service projects, fun activities in between and Dances to finish the day.

Everything was extremely well organized and planned out. It was Todd's first Youth Conference and I had fun being there with him as a chaperon. We also enjoyed being a host family to the young men and adult leaders from the Front Royal ward.

THOUGHTS: I had a job offer from my old company TEKsystems come my way this month. They have been recruiting me for several months and finally put together a job offer/proposal. I have been really happy in my job and was not looking to leave. The job offer however from Tek created some great future career opportunities as well as better financial compensation. I just really did not want to leave the comfort of my current job and I could not decide which path I should take. I talked to several people that would understand my situation but I was still so confused, waffling back and forth on my situation. So I decided to take the decision to the Lord. I got up three weeks ago and went to the temple.

I had such a wonderful experience and came out with the inspiration I needed to make the decision to leave my comfortable position and take on the bigger challenge with Teksystems.

WORDS: Tomorrow is Josephs birthday and he turns eight. He is scheduled to be baptized next Saturday and all of Julie's family is coming for it. Tami made a surprise visit by taking a military "hop" to the US and is staying with us for the next month (Hopefully longer!). The kids love her so much! For certain reasons I currently feel anxious and I have all week since Tuesday. I feel like I did when I was on the plane heading to the Dominican Republic and the great unknown of my mission...

4th of July Follies

WORDS: HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!

DEEDS: The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays. I started preparing for the 4th this year back in Nov. 2009. While on our trip to visit Todds Family in Missouri we bought the majority of our fireworks their at Hannibal MO fireworks superstore at dirt cheap prices. Then last month Sarah Todd and I made a quick run to Breezewood PA for some additional items. Ben came over on Saturday, July 3rd. We made our first run to Wal-mart that day and then afterwards "The Boys" went out behind the neighborhood went and blew up stuff for about two hours (see pictures). Todd came home from Grandmas and we demonstrated a few fireworks. Julie made a super dinner then we went to Wal-mart again for some forgotten items and then to ConeZone for Ice Cream. We got back home just as it was starting to get dark and the neighborhood was already lighting up with Mortars. So we joined in the fun and tested some of our arsenal. To finish the evening we played Zombie Fluxx with Ben(I think Ben is Larry). On July 4th we had Church and Verl Leavitt invited us to his house to light off fireworks. He has a large backyard that is primarily just a grassy field. He also has a nice back porch and swimming pool. Once we got home everyone started to arrive, Dusty, Ami, Eric, Mom and Sarah. We decided that Verl's backyard sounded much better than setting up lawn chairs in the empty street near our house. We went out again with everyone in the late afternoon and blew up some more stuff behind the neighborhood. We then had dinner and played more Zombie Fluxx. Around 7:45 we all headed over to Verl's house about 5-10 minutes away. Everyone had a great time playing in the pool and eating homemade ice cream and brownies. Todd mostly hung out with Jacob and Lauren while Dusty, Ben and I prepared the fireworks display. We started with bottle rockets right at dusk then started the show with the brick of Saturn Missiles. We then a great time all three of us firing mortars, repeaters, fountains, bottle rockets, Roman Candles etc. I would say we put on a pretty good show and everyone seemed to have a great time. The neighbors were also lighting off some powerful stuff so it made the show even more entertaining. That is until the neighbor about 200 yards away lit off a mortar that fell over and it hit him in the chest then hit the ground and exploded. The ambulance came at which point we halted our show. Turns out he was okay just got bruised really bad and possible broken clavicle. We finished the evening with sparklers and few more fireworks. Afterwards everyone headed home about 10:30. We got home and played some more Zombie Fluxx to end the evening. Ben left this morning after spending the weekend with us. It was too bad that Regina had to work but we certainly enjoyed having Ben and his water guns and zombie games for the weekend. The kids love him! All and All and AWESOME WEEKEND that was 9 Months in the making. I am already preparing for next year...

Thoughts: (Click on pictures for larger size)

Our Arsenal (I am never quite sure if we have enough fireworks...)

Crazy Uncle Ben and his Junior Pyrotechnicians
Seth holding a firecracker "Little Dynamite". He kept thinking of bigger and bigger things he wanted to blow up including houses and all wild horses.
I was able to snap a picture of a plastic water gun just as it was blowing apart in the air.

Dusty brought this old stuffed alligator that me and Ben operated on and filled with as many firecrackers, flashers and and jumping jacks as we could.
Dusty pointing out the remains of the Alligator to show to his work friends..I think the operation was a success.

Joseph firing a small roman candle at some army men.
A closeup of the same picture. After multiple pictures I was able to get one that captured the fireball being ejected (on the far left).
Eric's first Roman Candle. He shot it off reciting Harry Potter spells...

A good shot of Sarah doing a Patronum (sp?) Spell

Starting the fireworks show with some medium bottle rockets...I like the spark trail you can see in the smoke.

Ben Preparing to fire off Josephs rocket to start the show.
Verls' Backyard with my family, Verls' Family and the Grow family.