More puppy flicks

The pups are getting old enough to start taking solid foods now, so all the work begins. In another 10 days they will be weaned from the mom and I will be doing all the work. I put them out on the front lawn for the first time and they weren't sure they liked it at all.

Puppy Love

Mao and Cathy visited recently and Hunter immediately fell in love with the new puppies. He always wants to see the dogs when he comes, but now that there are new puppies, you can't keep him away from them. They are just starting to get up and around and playing with each other. I have found a couple of them outside the whelping box in the morning, so the work will start pretty soon. I will begin to feed them in about a week and that's when the mom starts to let me take over. I am not looking forward to all the mess. I know that you are all feeling sorry for me.

Puppies Have Arrived

On Tuesday, Feb. 12th, I came home just before having to leave for the temple, to check on Billie to see if she had any pups. There were no pups, but she hadn't eaten hear morning meal, so I knew they were imminent. I worked at the temple until about 7:30 then I drove to the Long Beach airport to pick up Nancy from her Boston trip. We drove through a Wendy's for a quick meal then headed home. When we got there at 9:30 I checked on Billie. When I opened the door to the whelping box, there were puppies everywhere. She gave birth to 11 puppies!! There were 8 orange and white males, 2 black and white males, and a black and white female. The female is the one closest to the camera. Unfortunately, one of the orange and white males was either born dead or died shortly after birth. The remaining ten seem to be doing well, although a couple of the orange & white males are a little smaller. Billie seems to be a good mother, but she is a little goofy at feeding time. I have doubled her feed, but she still seems to be ravenous. For the next four weeks she gets to do all the work, then when I start feeding the puppies I get to do most of the work. Needless to say, Nancy is thrilled. I don't understand her. It seems that most women would love to have 13 dogs running around the house. I tried to give her pick of the litter for her Valentine's present, but she (not very politely) declined. Like the song says, "She didn't say no. She said HELL NO".

My Latest Project

A couple of months ago we were with the Smart family and Brooke had a knitting loom with her. I mentioned to her that I had been trying to find one of those looms in our area, but hadn't had any luck finding one. A few weeks later, when we were with Gordon and Rosemary for the National Finals Rodeo, Rosemary presented me with a gift from Brooke of the knitting loom I was looking for.

Today, I found some camouflage yarn and started to make my first knit stocking cap. It was so fun that I worked for about two and a half hours until I finished it. It is not high tech, but it is therapeutic. Guess what everybody is going to get for Christmas!

Uno Mas

I was able to sneak down to Mexico one more time this weekend. Gary Hadley and I went down Thursday night and we hunted all day Friday, then came home early Saturday morning. It would have been nice to stay for Saturday because they had a duck hunt planned, but I needed to speak at the Saturday afternoon session of our Stake Conference. My assigned topic was about providing service to our fellow man. We got to apply the principle on Thursday night near the end of our trip. As we were travelling on the darkest, roughest section of dirt road we came upon a man and a woman waving us down. We stopped and discovered that they had been drinking and had driven their car off of the road and almost into a deep canal. We drove them back to their car, assessed the situation, then drove to John Anderson's house and got a tow strap. We were able to pull them out with my truck after a couple of attempts, and got them back on the road. Hopefully, they didn't kill anybody on the rest of their journey.

We got a bunch of doves Friday morning and then hunted pheasants in the afternoon. We saw lots of pheasants, and Abby had a lot of good points, but most of the birds were hens. We managed to shoot three roosters, but John couldn't find the one he knocked down. That night we had a meal of pheasant, dove and sirloin steak. I cooked some sweet potatoes so that we had some vegetables. Real man food.

Give your babies an extra hug

Kirk & Jenny Hess buried their son Russell today. Kirk is the oldest son of Kyle and Karen Hess. He is one year older than Adam and is a new Bishop in the Santa Margarita Stake. When Kirk was nine years old, his father died in a scuba diving accident at Catalina Island. I was hired by Williams Insulation Company to replace Kyle and that is what brought us to our Lake Forest home. Kyle was also my brother John's brother in law as they both married sisters. Kirk's mother was pregnant with her fifth child when Kyle died, and raised her five children by herself, never remarrying.

Kirk married a great young woman and they had five children, a daughter and four sons. Russell was his third son and would have been 5 years old this month. The entire Hess family had gathered in Utah for one of those rare occasions when they were all together. They stayed at a family cabin and had a wonderful Christmas. They then went to Provo and stayed with a relative for New Years and went sleigh riding on New Years Day. Kirk and Russell came down the hill on a sled and at the end of the run Kirk had to steer the sled off the run to avoid hitting another child. The sled hit a tree and even though Kirk tried to protect Russell, he slipped out of Kirks hands and his head hit the tree, causing severe brain damage. Priesthood blessings were performed and he was rushed to the hospital, but did not regain conciousness. They buried him in his Power Rangers costume.

There is a song I listen to on the radio. It is about a man who lived to be a hundred and he was asked what advice he would give people about how to live their lives. His answer: "Don't Blink". By this he meant that life passes by so quickly that we shouldn't even blink because we will miss something important. After hearing about today's events with the Hess family, I think it is also a warning to not blink when it comes to protecting our children. They are so very precious and we have to do all that we can to keep them out of harm's way. Nancy and I pray for each of our children and our grandchildren on a daily basis. We pray that they will be safe and have joy in their lives and that they will make proper decisions. I remember a statement that I heard years ago. The message was that sending our children off to school or play without a daily prayer is like sending them out into a blizzard without a coat.

I pray that no one in our family has to experience what the Hess family did today. Give your children two extra hugs today. One for you and one for Nancy and I.

New Year's First Sunset

As the day was winding down on the first day of 2008, we looked out our back windows and saw this beautiful sunset. After the cold weather of Utah, we were happy to be back home and the warmer climate. As you are toughing out the winter in Utah, Boston and North Carolina, we hope that this doesn't make you too jealous. I'm convinced that every time they show the Rose Bowl Parade on January 1st, there are people in Montana, Minnesota, Michigan, etc., that start packing their bags to move here. I'm also certain that after experiencing the traffic on Southern California highways, they move back after a month or so. Last year 90,000 more people left California, than moved here. If the Governator keeps raising taxes, it will be worse next year.

Have a happy and prosperous New Year!