Akane's Visit (Part 1)

I mentioned in my last post that we were preparing for a visit from a former foreign exchange student from Japan.  She is now here, and we are in the midst of her visit with us.  I am going to report on her first day with us.  A bit of background to begin.  When we first moved into our home, we were approached by a member of our ward who was a coordinator for a foreign exchange company asking if we were interested in hosting a Japanese student for two weeks during the Christmas season.  Now that we had a home with a guest room, we thought this would be a fun experience and said, "yes" to the invitation.  Since that first December back in 2003, we have hosted somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 to 20 students and/or chaperons from Japan, China, Brazil, Germany and France.  Two of the students, Julio from Brazil and Robin from Germany, were "long term" students who stayed with us for four to six months.  The others have been part of groups that have stayed in the US for anywhere from a week to three weeks.  Out of all of the kids or adults who have stayed with us, there were three who were . . . clunkers (I'll leave it at that), but the others have been very nice and we've enjoyed getting to know them.  We have had a few of the kids contact us after returning home, but those contacts have either dried out, or have been very sporadic.   It has been a while since we hosted any of the short 2 to 3 week student stays.  I have to wonder if anyone is even doing them anymore.

Akane Kasuga first visited us about 3 or 4 years ago.  She was part of a pair of students who stayed with us that summer.  We really liked her and had a lot of fun with her while she stayed with us (her roommate, on the other hand, was one of the "clunkers;" hiding out in the guest room from the moment they returned from daily activities--I think we coaxed her out once).  Every time we connect well with these students, I always tell them: "If you want to come back, you are welcome to stay with us."  Up to this point, no one has taken me up on this invitation until now.  Akane contacted Jennifer through Facebook back in February around Jen’s birthday and brought up the possibility of visiting us during her summer break from college.  Soon, it became apparent that a summer visit wasn't going to work out, but she persisted and by the end of July, things began falling in place.  It wasn’t long before she had plans put together to visit us from December 21st through New Year’s Day.  We were all very excited by this.  As I said, we had never had an exchange student come back for the sole purpose of visiting us—Robin, the 6 month exchange student from Germany, visited us for a couple of hours several months after he had returned home, but his sole purpose for coming back was to see the girlfriend he had met, so he doesn’t count.

 

In the midst of making plans for her arrival, we learned that Michael McLean's Forgotten Carols play would be in Las Vegas on the 21st.  At the time, Jennifer got dates a bit mixed up and thought for sure that Akane would be arriving on Friday (the 20th).  The tickets were affordable and we thought it would be fun to take Akane to Vegas to see the city and the play, so we made our purchase and let her know that we wanted to treat her to this experience.  She thanked us for doing so, but reminded us that she would be arriving on the 21st.  Jennifer panicked at bit at first--how where we going to pull this off?  After looking at the logistics, we realized she was scheduled to arrive at around 8 in the morning at LAX and the play was to start at 7:30 that evening.  We realized this would be a crazy day for her, but she assured us that she was up for the additional traveling.  Of course, since nothing truly works out like you plan, the 21st became a wild day for all of us.  We got up early Saturday morning to head down to LAX.  Halfway in our drive, Jennifer found a message on her cellphone from Akane saying that her flight had been delayed somewhere between Bangkok and Tokyo for 2 hours and she would be arriving at the airport around 1o o'clock (could have slept a couple hours longer).  Once she had arrived, Akane didn’t get through customs until around 11:20.  After quick hugs and reintroductions, we bundled her into the car and zoomed away towards Vegas.

 

We made a quick stop at home to grab some more snacks for the road.  The poor girl slept in the car along the way and kept apologizing for it when she woke up (we assured her it was fine).  I had made reservations to stay in the Rivera hotel, since I didn't want to try to drive home late in the night.  I wanted to check in and get situated before we did anything else.  We had learned there was a Stake n' Shake at the South Point casino.  The plan had been to check in, get dressed in nicer clothes and eat dinner before the show started.  By the time we got checked into the hotel and dressed (Akane was already dressed for the play; we where the "slobs"), we had maybe enough time to possibly grab fast food and get over to the Cashman Center.  With the way the streets are in the main casino area, this turned to be harder than it looked.  Every time I we saw a place to eat (Subway, Burger King, and the like), I would either pass it while looking for the driveway, or the driveway would be in a place that was very difficult to get to in time.  Finally in exasperation, I said we could eat some snacks and get dinner afterward because I was afraid we wouldn't make it to the show in time.

 

When we got to the Cashman Center, we were told that a person in front of us had paid for our parking and several other cars behind us (that was a nice surprise).  This was the first time we had taken Ben and Isaac with us to see Forgotten Carols.  Jen and I noticed the presentation had been turned into an actual play.  Before, about 7 or 8 years ago when we last saw it (this was our third time), the program was a story with musical interludes, but I read in the playbill that a concerted effort had been made to flesh out the presentation.  Jen and I noticed new characters and the story was more cohesive and tied more seamlessly with the music.  I was very impressed with the additions—in a way, it was like seeing it for the first time.  Jennifer said Akane nodded off a time or two during the show, but she and we had a good time.

 

When we left the auditorium, it was plain to see that Akane was very tired (for her, the 21st of December had lasted for roughly 36 hours).  Jennifer told me it would probably be better to go back to the Rivera and go to sleep.  However, when we asked her, she was more interested in eating dinner even though it was nearly 11:00.  I suggested we could now go to the Steak n’ Shake and everyone was happy to hear it.   Yum.  We went to church in Vegas this morning.  Our leaving a little after noon kept the usual traffic problem to a minimum and got us home by the mid-afternoon

Trip to LA Temple & Christmas Devotional

The Christmas season is here with all its flurry!  We didn't even get a chance to eat Thanksgiving dinner before being inundated with TV commercials touting the "Black Friday" starting on Thursday.  All these doorbuster bargain sales seem silly to me, but corporate America still insisted on screaming at me, "Come shop at my store!  I have the best gifts for the best price and you'll be the hero of your family as you give them everything they could ever want and more!"  There are times when I feel Charlie Brown's desperation when, after being mocked for his choice of a Christmas tree, he cries, "Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?"  Linus delivers the answer to Charlie Brown's question.  For me, two things have helped set the tone for the Christmas season: 1) was taking Ben's friend, Xavier, to see the Christmas lights at the Los Angeles Temple, and 2) the annual Christmas Devotional lead by the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

We had tried to take Xavier to the LA Temple last year with the Young Men and Young Women's groups from our ward, but he got sick and wasn't able to make it.  This year something happened (scheduling conflicts or the like) and our ward's YM and YW didn't go as they have in the past.  Ben really wanted to take his friend, so we decided to make the trip ourselves.  I think everyone had a nice time.  We stopped at In-n-Out for dinner on the way and spent at least a couple of hours walking around the temple grounds and going through the Visitor's Center.  Inside the center, we met a sister missionary who is pretty new to the field.  She took us around and showed us Mr. Krueger's Christmas and the same video about families we saw in Palmyra.  There was also a video depicting the Christmas story running on a continual loop and a display of Nativity sets from around the world.  We told her to keep an eye out for us in three of weeks as we would be coming again with a former foreign exchange student from Japan who is coming out to visit us at Christmastime.  I am glad that we were able to go to the temple and fulfill Ben's wish to take his friend to see the Christmas display.

 

The next day was the Christmas devotional.  I honestly don't remember when I first began watching this particular devotional.  Maybe it was during my mission; perhaps it was sometime in the early 90's; but whenever my participation began, the Christmas devotional has helped me to set a better tone for the season.  To be reminded by the prophet and his counselors the importance of keeping Christ in the forefront of the festivities has been helpful to me.  The "run up" to this year's event took an unexpected turn when I learned it was entitled "Christmas Devotional" instead of "First Presidency Christmas Devotional."  A few days before the event, I came across an article in the Deseret News where a spokesman for the Church was quoted saying: "While we anticipate that a member of the First Presidency will participate in the program, it has been decided to give other church leaders the opportunity to speak at the annual Christmas devotional" ("LDS Church alters Christmas devotional tradition," Deseret News website, Dec. 4, 2013).  I admit to being intrigued by who might be speaking, but since I could find no other official word on the participants, I decided to go with the flow and see where it lead.  It also happened that the scheduled night of the devotional coincided with the final temple preparation class for the latest group I've been teaching.  The week previous, Jennifer and I invited the group to come over to the house early for the devotional (since it started at 5 here on the West coast and our classes have begun at 6:30) and we would have desert and commence with the lesson afterward.

 

I very much enjoyed the talks.  Like my conference experience, I learned something from all four messages, but noticed there were two that stood out specifically to me.  The first was Primary General President Rosemary M. Wixom's talk "What Happened Next?" (click this link to see and read the talk).  The beginning of her talk about the "Christmas surprise" her mother would sew and how she was able to peek one year and learn what the surprise was in advance reminded me of how my brother Aaron and I would wait until Mom and Dad had gone to bed before sneaking down the stairs to see the presents under the tree.  We were never ones to go hunting through the house prior to Christmas morning, searching for the secret hiding places Mom had the gifts; we found satisfaction in being the first to see the presents before any other sibling.  I don't remember if anyone finally beat us to the punch, but we had a pretty good consecutive streak going before we were unseated from the top of the leaderboard.  The bulk of her talk centered around the experience a Cub Scout den leader from Gilbert, Arizona had as she taught the story of Christmas to her den of 8-year-olds.  After talking about the initial story of the birth of Jesus, one of the boys asked, "Well, what happened next?"  Which caused her to relate more of the story of Jesus' life until the boy's continually asked question brought her to describe His ultimate Atoning sacrifice.  When the den leader finished relating this portion of the life of the Savior, the boy said in wonder, "He did that for me?"

 

This final question caused me to reflect on hymn number 193: I Stand All Amazed: "Oh, it is wonderful that he should care for me Enough to die for me!"  It really is an amazing thing to realize that someone loves us so much that He would willingly give His life in order for us to truly live eternally.  While we celebrate Jesus' birth at this time of year, it is important to also remember His life, His mission, and His Atoning sacrifice.  I also enjoyed Elder Russell M. Nelson's address about Jesus being the Prince of Peace.  Using scriptural quotations of the Savior (which were read by someone else), Elder Nelson discussed the different ways that Jesus can bring peace into our lives if we will reach out and earnestly seek Him (click this link to see the talk).

I hope that I can continue to feel the spirit of these and the other talks given at the devotional throughout this Christmas season.  Sometimes it seems so easy to get caught up in the commercialism and the hustle and bustle of buying and preparing.  I am grateful for leaders who take the time to listen to the Spirit and prepare talks such as these to help us to keep this time of year in perspective.

"Where Do [I] Go From Here?"

In case your wondering where the title quotation came from (and even if you're not), it's the first line in the Alan Parson's Project song "Games People Play" from their album The Turn of a Friendly Card (child of the mid to late 70's and early to mid 80's remember). :)  As can be seen, I've altered the lyric slightly to suit my purposes, but I think it appropriately reflects my state of mind as I pound out this particular post.

Back on July 23rd (sheesh, has it really been roughly 4 1/2 months ago), I sat down at my computer and started this blog.  One of the questions I asked in my initial post was: "What do I want to accomplish?"  My first answer to this question was an expression of my desire to write about the summer vacation my family had recently finished and to provide some insights as to what it meant to me.  I didn't think it would take until December to accomplish this goal, but, I didn't expect my oldest son to suffer a back injury either, so I'm not going to beat myself up over the length of time it has taken to write my first 20 posts. :)  My next stated goal was to "write some things that are either important to me (the "general" part) or make random musings that might be funny at least to me [I crack myself up all the time when I'm writing--I'm the best audience I've ever had because I get all my obscure jokes] and possibly someone else (the "abstract" part)."  I guess I now find myself at this particular junction.

Before and after I began my own blogging adventure, I have read blogs that are funny in their delivery; I have read blogs that are serious; others have been a general accounting of specific happenings of the writer's day or something about the writer's family; and some have been about a specific niche topic.  It has come to my attention that blogs may be on their way out as a medium people pay attention to (if this is so, it would figure I'd start one at the time when they're becoming extinct).  Be that as it may, this is where I've hitched my pony.  When it comes to what I desire to write about from this point forward, I can only be true to myself and write about things that . . . shall I say "catch my fancy" at the time.  There may be moments when some topic concerning the gospel of Jesus Christ is on my mind, so I'll write about it; or it could be a random thought about some goofy or serious thing going on in my life or the lives of the people around me; or maybe I'll find a piece of lint that looks like Elvis and I'll just have to share.  I don't know exactly where my head will take me, but as long as I'm not using this as a forum for negativity, I'll allow my brain to take me in whatever direction it wants to go.

Another statement made in my first entry was that the "whys and the wherefores" behind my inspiration to start this blog were a mystery to me.  I can now report . . . nothing has changed in that regard--I'm still as clueless about the reasons now as I was when I began.  When I check the "all time stats" section of my blog, I find the first two "top traffic sources" seem to be spam website (a huge ego boost).  Furthermore, there are 7 countries that also don't make a lick of sense to me (France and South Korea are exempt from this because I know the reason why they pop up).  The stats also show I've received 845 total page views up to this point--681 "pings" have come from the United States.  Other than the explanation that my family has gone completely nuts and is pinging me several times a day every day, I don't know how this has come to pass (to riff on an oft used Book of Mormon phrase).  However, if there is a random someone who has stumbled across my musings and found what I have written to be of interest or helpful in understanding something about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or . . . whatever; then that's fine with me.  I do feel it appropriate to say that I, in no way, am a official representative of the Church--just a guy trying to live the commandments of Christ to the best of my knowledge and ability.  Any incorrect statement of doctrine is mine and mine alone.  If someone has a proper and appropriate correction to offer when I misspeak (write; you get the picture), I'm all for it.  Maybe this blog is for me; possibly it could be for someone else--I don't know.  What I do know is that my answer to the title question of this post is: "Wherever the Spirit moves me."  Your guess is as good as mine as far as what this answer means; but I hope it will be interesting to find out.

The Great 2013 Vacation: The Mad Dash Home!

Now that I'm nearly finished with my report of our vacation--which has taken me a lot longer than I originally expected because of my decision to include "impressions" of the Church history sites and because of the trials I described in my last post--I think it would be easier to lump the two days of our return trip home into one post since it was mostly a mad dash to get back.

After breaking camp, we drove a few miles into the city of Topeka, Kansas to the final (planned) Steak 'n Shake on our trip.  As I mentioned in a previous post, as I perused the menu items on the company's web site, I learned they serve breakfast as well as lunch and dinner.  I figured if they served it, we might as well give it a try.  I am happy to report that breakfast was very good and the service was much better.  I don't recall what everyone else had, but I had a Portobello n Sausage skillet--yum.  Overall, I have to say it was a pretty impressive tryout.  I'm still not sure if or when we will be getting one near us or if one is being built in a neighboring town (the lack of news has been frustrating), but if the eventual franchise is as good as what we had on the road, it should do well.  After a quick trip to a near-by Wal-Mart for a new bag of ice and drinks (I had a funny encounter with the checker; I happened to mention we were on vacation, but before I could say we were on our way home he said, "On vacation; in Kansas?  What's there to see in Kansas?"), we were soon merged onto the I-70 and on our way to Grand Junction, Colorado.

About an hour into our trip, we began to see signs for the Oz Museum.  The theme for Girl's Camp was "There's No Place Like Our Heavenly Home" and many Oz inspired ideas were planned for the camp.  The closer we came to the exit, the more it became apparent to me that Jennifer would like to go just to see what it was all about.  The signs gave the impression that the museum was near the exit (or, I suppose I assumed such).  As I got off at the exit, I started looking around for any signs of buildings.  There was another sign pointing us toward Wamego, Kansas and another advertisement for the museum.  I turned in the appropriate direction and soon found that Wamego was roughly 10 miles north of I-70.  I admit to feeling a bit miffed by this deception, but I had committed us to going, so a sucked it up and kept driving.  We didn't have time to go into the museum once we arrived, but Jennifer had us take a picture of her in front of the place and Ben shot a video of her so she could make a message to "her girls" to let them know she was thinking about them in the middle of Kansas.  While I was taking Jennifer's picture, Ben and Isaac began laughing.  When we asked why, they pointed to the building next door to the museum; an establishment named "Toto's Tacoz" (a bit of a groaner).  I guess if someone wanted to claim they'd eaten at an Oz themed establishment, this would be the place to go.  It was a bit over the top I far as I was concerned, but I guess they figured "why not?"  Not wanting to loose any more time, I shooed everyone back into the car and we continued on our way.

 

"Toto, let's give tacos to the Munchkins!"

 

Our only major glitch with the Optima came after we stopped in Colby, Kansas for gas: the air conditioner went on the fritz.  This may not have been such a bad thing except for the fact that about 30 minutes after leaving Wamego the outside temperature climbed to about 105°.  For nearly 2 weeks, we had experienced nice, moderate temperatures for June (which made the humid East coast tolerable for us arid West coasters), but now we had run into the middle of a heat wave.  The air conditioner had attempted to fizzle out during the beginning of our trip, but I'd played with the controls and it roared back to life.  This time, however, no amount of coaxing worked.  Even at full blast, the amount of cold air exiting the vents was minimal.  Disgusted, I turned the unit off and we employed the 2/75 method--2 windows rolled down at 75 miles an hour.  It wasn't the most pleasant way to travel, but we really had no time to stop, call Avis, and search for a mechanic.  I did pull off at an exit once not long before we entered Colorado to see if I could figure out what was wrong, but I'm all thumbs when it comes to cars.  I popped the hood and attempted to look around for some obvious answer to our troubles, but all my search turned up was a reminder of how inept I am at mechanics.  We continued in this manner all the way to the Denver Temple (when the boys woke up, they felt the need to say, "We're not in Kansas anymore!" even though we hadn't been for a couple of hours).  We reached the next stop on our temple scavenger hunt and we're able to walk the grounds and see the temple close up (the last time we had stopped at the Denver Temple, the front gate was closed as we were relegated to taking pictures from the street).

 

Mission accomplished (pictures taken, temple grounds walked, legs stretched, and spirits recharged), we prepared for the next obstacle on our journey home: the climb into the Rocky Mountains and the decent to Grand Junction.  When we returned to the car, I decided to give the air conditioner a try--crazy thing roared back to life as though nothing had happened.  My worry about this next leg of our trip was the potential of Ben getting altitude sickness.  Several years before, we had driven this same stretch of I-70 on the way home and Ben had become sick at around the 9,000 foot mark; he didn't feel better until we were a good ways down the West side of the mountains.  Considering the trip goes from the Mile High City (at 5,280 feet) to 11,158 (the West-bound entrance of the Eisenhower Tunnel), in roughly 2 hours (give or take), I understood why this could be a problem again.  I told everyone to let me know if they started feeling sick at any time during our ascent (the last thing we needed was someone barfing in the car).  Maybe stopping in Idaho Springs for Carl's Jr. helped (perhaps food in the stomach made the remainder of the ascent easier to handle, or maybe I haven't a clue--more likely), but we had no problems this time.  The two things that did happen was a deer jumped onto the road from the median and got clipped by an SUV about 30 feet in front of us and the tire pressure light came on (I think I got off the freeway at an exit to take a look and ended up traveling 2 or 3 additional miles through swanky condominium complexes that offered no place to pull over until I drove into a parking lot in desperation with the hope that the owner of the lot didn't show up while I was visually checking my tires to find the flat the idiot light was claiming and finding nothing--grrr).  Ben and Isaac were amazed to find snow still on the ground as we approached the tunnel.  I find the Eisenhower Tunnel a fascinating ride; but, I've always had a soft spot for tunnels.  I should have asked Ben to video our approach and travel through, but I didn't (bummer).  There are several more tunnels to travel through on the way down the mountainside.  Finally, at some time around 11 o'clock that night, we pulled into the Grand Junction KOA, put up our tent, inflated our air mattresses for the final time and fell asleep.

For me, segments of the next day were pretty much a blur.  I was struck by the sharp contrast in scenery as we left Grand Junction and headed toward Utah.  After passing through the green mountains, we found ourselves in a desert.  During our previous trip through this area, much of it was in the dark.  I appreciated being able to see the beautiful mesas and plateaus of the desert.  Once we connected with the I-15 and traveled the appropriate distance, we stopped in St. George to make a side trip to the temple there--it wasn't on our scavenger list since we've visited the temple multiple times over the years, but we like it and wanted to stretch our legs so it didn't take much convincing to make the temple a rest stop.  After that, I think I clicked into autopilot of sorts as we marked time by calling out each remaining state we passed through: Arizona, Nevada, California.

 

 

St. George Temple--a nice close to our scavenger hunt.

Arizona! (Nice bug guts on the windshield, eh?)

Nevada!  Gettin' closer!

California!  Home stretch!

 

We would have arrived home sooner, but by the time we reached Barstow we were all hungry and wanted In-n-Out hamburgers for dinner.  We'd had some good food along the way, but the taste of good double-doubles made us realize we had returned to familiar territory.  Finally, at around 7:30 or 8 o'clock that evening, we gratefully pulled into the driveway of our home and found it still standing--the cats hadn't knocked it to the ground in our absence.  Funny thing (at least, to us), we had seen a huge, orange tabby cat when we pulled into the Albuquerque KOA 2 weeks previous.  The cat looked very much like our cat, Jonesy, so Ben and Isaac started making jokes about coming home and finding Jonesy as fat as the cat we had seen that night.  The occasional cry of "Fat Jonesy!" would be made as we traveled which would crack us all up.  As we walked into the house (chronicled on video by Ben), I picked up Jonesy and found he had put on some weight during our 2 week absence.  I pointed this out to everyone, and the cry of "Fat Jonesy!" rang through the house.  The end of successful family vacation; punctuated by laughter from all of us.  :)