This is my nephew Jake teaching a couple that lives on a man-made floating island on a lake in Peru.

Shannon’s nephew Christian has his farewell this weekend. He is going to Uganda!!

I spent most of last week in Orlando meeting my new employer. Stayed at the Rosen Shingle Creek, near Tiger’s place. Very impressed with the new owner and the corporate staff. I got to meet the greatest American mountain climber: Ed Viesturs. He was a guest speaker and I got to chat him up for ~30 minutes at a banquet before he spoke to the group. Very interesting, amazing and adventurous person. He has climbed all of 14 of the 8,000 meter peaks in the world WITHOUT OXYGEN! He’s climbed Everest 7 times and was there in ’96 with the IMAX crew when all those people died. Got to see my high school buddy Tom while I was there.

Saturday the whole family participated at our stake’s Mormon Helping Hands project. About 300 of us went to a huge children’s shelter to work on various project. The youth were tasked with organizing their 13,000 rubber ducks that they use for a fund raiser. We had to sort them in order, record them and package them up. It was a very tedious task! There were 75,000 of us working on service projects across the state.

Saturday night we had a birthday bash for Gavin. Took the group of 12 kids bowling then went back to the house for swimming and games.

Happy Mother’s Day to my babies Momma and all the other Mommies in my life!

We drove to the NW for spring break. We stopped in Portland for a couple days to visit friends. I got dropped off to work for the week. The manager that replaced me there decided to move back to Michigan to be closer to family, so I will be spending some time covering until they find someone else. Rest of the family drove up to BC to visit Shannon’s parents. They missed the open house for the new Vancouver LDS temple by a day or two, but luckily the temple president is a lifelong family friend so they were able to get a super deluxe private tour. They all loved it. More visiting in Portland, then we made our way south to Shannon’s sister’s near Sacramento.

My sister Margo lives near the Paul Kruger’s family in Utah valley. He was a beastly, defensive superstar for the University of Utah football team and now plays for the Baltimore Ravens. He is Ty’s favorite football player since they are both running on one kidney. Kruger lost his from an ATV accident when he was young. Margo asked his mom if she could get Paul to autograph something for Ty. He sent Ty an autographed Ravens ball and two autographed 8 x 10 photos. Awesome!

Look who my moms and pops ran into at Little America a few weeks ago. President Monson was taking the Mrs to brunch for her birthday. My parents were there with one of their favorite Mongolians: Siara.

Grace and I went to UT for Chase’s baptism last weekend. It was a very moving ceremony. Chase chose Grandpa Wride to perform the baptism.

Grace loves ice skating and trips to UT usually mean a visit to the South Davis Rec Center (as seen in an episode of “Nitro Circus”). She’s pretty good at it and we want to get her in some lessons to see if she wants to pursue it. Mom takes full credit for those genes since she was the star performer at figure skating productions at the local rink in BC back in the day. We also went swimming at the rec center and I got to ride Mike’s new Harleyesque Yamaha cruiser.

I picked Grace up right after school on Thursday and we made a b-line for Vegas where we saw Lion King The Musical. It was an entertaining show. I got a cheap room at the Planet Hollywood Hotel on Hotwire. Since we were only staying one night they upgraded us to the $500+/ night penthouse suite for free! It felt as big as our house, had awesome views of the strip, giant flat screen TVs, etc.

Went houseboating on Lake Mead last Thur, Fri, Sat with group of young men from church. Friday the water was AMAZING…glass smooth for all but a couple hours when there were some ripples. The air temp was 113, water temp 89, but we stayed comfortable by jumping in the water and chillin’ in the houseboat with central air. Friday night some big wind gusts blew the houseboat off our anchors, but we were able to reattach to shore and make it thru the night. One of the YM left for BYU the next day, another is leaving for Y’daho this week.

I hadn’t heard great things about Mead, so I was pleasantly surprise: interesting scenery, not crowded, smooth water and convenient facilities. We got to Callville Bay right after a houseboat with kids on it exploded. 5 people were injured, but no fatalities.

This weekend the children got to see both sets of grandpas and grandmas. We met the Wride side at SeaWorld Friday afternoon. They were in San Diego to check out a timeshare and brought Chase along. It was a gorgeous day and we had lots of fun. Chase and I sat on the front row of the splash zone for the Shamu show…got drenched!! Friday night I took the boys to see Weezer at SDSU. Fun show!! Saturday morning we went to breakfast with grandpa, grandma and Chase, then headed back home for hockey.

Saturday night the Rennies were in town for a night on their way to check out a timeshare in Mexico. They got to watch 2 grandsons from 2 families play against each other in an exciting hockey game. After the hockey game we went back to the house to eat pizza, play games and watch the Oilers-Flames game. There is a rumor that area high schools will be adding rollerhockey teams starting as soon as NEXT YEAR!!

Dylan was the youth speaker in Sacrament meeting for the first time. He did a great job.

Four days at the beach just wasn’t enough last week, so I rode my bike back to the beach on Saturday. One of the young men I work with is working on his cycling merit badge. One of the requirements is to ride 50 miles in 8 hours. From my driveway to the parking lot at Seal Beach was 50.0 miles (per my GPS accurate to within +/- 20 feet). Four of us made the trip: two adults, two youth. It was uneventful, except for the thorn that gave me a flat in the first 2 miles. We made it in 5 hours. Shannon was waiting for us there with footlong subs, boogie boards, cold beverages and a ride home. Back home I made some Yes on Prop 8 phone calls, then we had friends over for games. My Settlers Slum continues…

My big brother turned 50 last week!!

Yesterday we helped a neighbor feed the homeless (~100) at a church in Pomona. It was a great experience.

The kids go back to school a week from Wednesday. The countdown is on.

He even wore socks to church. So far he likes wearing a suit…we’ll see how long that lasts. He is a great kid and we are very proud of him.