Father's Day (and ect.)

Today was a roller coaster of a day, but I did get a chance to just sit back and think about my dad. He is such an interesting person whom I have had the opportunity to watch for many years. Most of my siblings think I am just like him (we certainly look alike!) My earliest memories with my dad aren't the typical memories. My dad is the reason I got into The Simpsons. We used to sit and watch it together on many occasions. Even after we moved to SC he would still watch it with me on Sunday night before he stopped watching TV on Sunday. Now he won't watch it on any day of the week. My dad always seemed to try to do what was best for the family. He drove a lot every day. And whenever I'd ask him after work he'd tell me about all the traffic he goes through, or the time he woke up that morning (which was usually 2-3 hours before me!). One time he got transferred to Pennsylvania and didn't move the family, instead he lived there and commuted every few weeks. It was a rough time, but looking back I can see the sacrifice he made. He was always out in the yard doing something, even though he readily admitted not knowing what he was doing. He always let me be his gopher, though. He said that his dad let him be gopher (but never actually help), so he let me be it too. I would get him tools and water mostly. Him and I (him on knees, me standing over him) put in the fake stone border in the Mesa house. That was nice. He came to me one day, "Karl, I think you should collect something. I've chosen key chains for you. Here's your first one." He then brought me over 150 over the next few years all from different locations throughout the US and world. When we were forced to move to South Carolina it was rough for mom and I. We did not like it here, at all. Mom helped me, although she hated it, by saying that we go where the money is. It seems to me that even though we both hated that we had to move here, it has been a successful move. Both his sons have found their spouses. My dad and I share love for electronics. I usually will see him have a gadget and have to get one myself, but by the time I save up money I get a step above what he has. He doesn't like that one bit and within the next few weeks he gets a new one equal to or better than what I had. He always needed the best stuff. We both love computers, too. Most of what I know he taught me. I learned a lot from constant use, enough to the point that dad 'disguised' a birthday gift by giving me my own computer so I didn't have to hog his! Nice try, dad! :-) While on my mission I couldn't wait until Monday to be able to email my dad questions from the week because I knew he would search for a good answer and get it to me. He's my role model when it comes to the gospel. He is such a schooled scriptorian. Well, aside from one time I beat him in a scripture contest. I won't go in to it now, but he will admit that I beat him once--the only child to ever one-up him! He's been a great example to me.




Today during Sacrament meeting Ethan decided he wanted to get something off the floor while sitting, he leaned forward as much as he could. Eventually there was more weight in front of him and he fell onto the CORNER of the hymn holder. Man his head looked bad! Onna and I rushed him to the ER. He loved it there. I think he loves getting battle wounds. He is one tough kid.

May

Pretty sad when your blogs start taking the names of months because it's been so long. Luckily I should have a lot to write about. A lot has happened in the last month. I arrived back from Mexico and immediately began working the following week at my old job at Sonoco. The person who took my job was not very happy that I was coming back because it might mean for her to get the axe or for her hours to get cut. The latter did happen. Work slowed down, but luckily I have been able to work every day, which has been nice. Jan has talked about the full time position and I think that is still her desire, but the economy is still in a downturn. That could change shortly, though. One of Sonoco's competitors filed for bankruptcy last week. Their stocks dropped to .10 a share while Sonoco's have climbed about 60 or 70 cents since the announcement. That's good news!

The weekend after I got home I went to the beach with Onna's family. It was a really nice camper we stayed in, but I slept with the kids and that meant that as soon as the sun came up, so were they, and in turn, so was I! It didn't help that I had surgery on one of my foot warts only a couple days sooner. It was so hard to walk on the beach, or at all. I had to take more breaks than I normally would have liked to on a vacation, but all is well.

Christian and Ethan have been playing teeball lately. Ethan seems to be doing great, but Christian couldn't care less about it, it seems. He's in a big video game craze in his life, which makes Onna or myself limit his time.

Onna moved into our new place last weekend. There have been quite a few added stressors, but all in all it seems like it will be a great place to start for us. Heber J and I built the bunkbeds the boys sleep on and I've been hanging things at the will of Onna. One of the graetest things in that apartment is a table that we bought from Ikea. The table was just wood, intended for being able to paint it yourself. I did that and created quite the table (with plenty of help from mom!). I am really pleased with the work and how it turned out. My first project, the bedtable, still has a lot of work to go, and my next project will be nice 24" clocks. Mom and I are each going to make one. We're excited!

On Tuesday I got a call from President Barfield. He told me that I had to come meet with him. I knew it was for a calling, but which? On Thursday he called me to be 2nd Counselor in the Elder's Quorum. I was set apart today for that calling. I'm so excited to begin working!

I cooked today for the family. We had tacos. I thought they were fantastic! It seemed everyone else did too. Pictures of the new place will follow.

It's Over

Well since school has been out now for a week and a half, I figured I could write about my experiences. I have not done anything! Last week I stayed at home and just did things around the house. Saturday we finally did get out and went to Lake Chapala. We didn't swim or anything, but we did go horseback riding. It was my first experience with actual riding more than just a little bit. My buns hurt afterwards! What surprised me the most is how much it hurts when the horse is jogging because all you do is bounce up and down with it, but the second it switches to running most, it then becomes one of the smoothest rides around! I loved the feeling when it was running (although my horse liked competing and somehow kicked his speed up at each horse that seemed to be approaching--to win). During this last kilometer run I was very close to flying off, and was certain I was going to, but luckily I didn't. I'd like to go again soon, even if I couldn't walk for a couple hours or if the next day I was in some pretty intense pain!

Today is the last day of the break. Yesterday was supposed to be the last day, but they moved it out to today so they could clean the school and get rid of any last H1N1 defects. As Onna would point out, "They had a week and a half to do that!" Yes, they did. But oh well!

Speaking of things being over, as most of you know I am a pretty intense watcher of Seinfeld. Yesterday I finished the series, in total. That includes all episodes, all deleted scenes, all stories of episodes, and one episode that is only on the DVDs! It was a great journey. I knew I had seen a lot of Seinfeld before, and out of the 182 episodes, I had seen 180 before this adventure. One of them was the only-aired-once episode of the Puerto Rican Day Parade, and the other was when the gang decides to be volunteers for elderly people early in season 4. At least there are only a couple weeks left to entertain myself without Seinfeld! What a great series!

With school starting tomorrow and us having to make it up, instead of school for four hours a day, we will be going to school for six hours a day. It will be a bore, but it'll work out. And in reality, there are only 7 days left of school and you can't beat that!

Oh Mexican Flu, how you would like to be called...

It has been quite some time, and I have excuses for most of that time. Around the time of my last blog, you know, when I said I was going to start writing more, my hard drive on my computer crashed, and so from the end of March until the middle of April I basically had no computer that I could do anything on. I kept it on to keep me company though, until it would turn itself off from overheating. I called HP numerous times for this problem and they took care of it in 6 days.

That was good service I'd say. Well the last term of classes finished well. We made a trip to Guanajuato, which was beautiful. It is a city built on a mountain. There are only a few streets you can actually drive on, most are for walking purposes only. We did a lot of walking, but it all worked out in the end.


Guanajuato.

During Holy Week I stayed around Guadalajara for a few days before heading off to Arizona to stay with Tiffany and Amy. It was a lot of fun there and I was able to see the people that I wanted to see (which was the least amount that I've ever seen in any trip to Arizona!). I hung out with Tiffany and the girls a lot, and at night with Bryce. I finally played a little bit of Halo. I wasn't that good, but I for sure improved by the end of the few days I stayed there. Bryce and I went to a Diamondbacks game on Friday night. I make a point of explaining to my party that I've never been to a game in which the Diamondbacks lost. This is no small feat. I have been to over 15 games. Well this was a scary game. The Diamondbacks weren't doing too hot in the early innings of the game and I was thinking about the streak, then somehow their bats came alive and they put up 11 runs on the Dodgers. They won! My streak stayed alive! I was satisfied and anxious for that to continue going. On Saturday I switched to Amy's house. That was equally enjoyable. I got caught up in a craze of the game Croquet. Madison was quite well at the game; I believe the others just liked to play because she did. She is the leader of the pack amongst her siblings. Amy and I also bonded well while playing that, Mario Kart, and shopping on Monday morning. I got some nice tips at how to be a better shopper. Sunday at church, randomly, we were offered six free tickets to Monday's Dbacks game. I was a bit weary, seeing as how the streak had luckily continued a couple nights ago. Nevertheless, we set off, picked up Onna and my wedding announcements on the way and went to the game. The game was a pitchers duel, and was nerve wracking. In the 8th inning the Cardinals finally scored and won the game an inning later in a low-scoring game. What a blow!

Speaking of the streak, there have been numerous times that it was close to ending. I remember a specific game with Bryce a few years back. The Diamondbacks were down probably 5 runs in the 8th inning. We got up and left our seats, only to see a homerun hit as we were leaving, 2 runs there. We turned around in the aisle as the Dbacks put together some great at-bats to pull it within a run going into the ninth. We returned to our seats. In the 9th there was a lead-off double and that run eventually scored, but that was it. Moving on to extra innings the tension was high. The 10th passed with nothing happening. The 11th becomes a blur for me. I cannot remember if the team scored 2 runs in the top of the inning or if they scored none. The bottom of the inning brought runners to the bases and Alex Cintron to the plate. A 3 run walk-off homer was the result of that game just a few rows in front of us. What a game! Goodbye streak. I guess 16-1 is still a good run.

Then Easter Week was my next week of vacation. That found me on a surprise travel to South Carolina. I ding-dong-door-bell-ditched Onna with the announcements at her door and ran around the corner. After hearing about how in the world the announcements would arrive just the next day she comes walking around the corner where I was standing and got so excited! It was nice to spend some time with family. I set up croquet there and played with everyone I could. I was able to hang out with Will on Saturday. That was a lot of fun. He's a great friend. Sadly, Sunday came and I had to return to Mexico for one last time.

Since I have gotten back the time has gone so-so. It went super fast in the beginning for that first week of school. I was really getting into my Medical Spanish class and pondered on the thought of becoming a Nurse. I still have no idea what I want to become, but all that will be worked out. Also during that first week, Sandy, Onna's mom, found a little bigger place in Hartsville and her and Onna checked it out. It was a little bigger for the same rent, and it comes with two bathrooms! We had a decision to make, but eventually we went with this new location due to the size and Onna can move things when she wants. The lease doesn't start until June 1, however.

Last weekend we went to Zacatecas, another Mexican state. It was a lot of fun but A LOT of walking. We were able to go inside of an old mine shaft and walk around, and we took a tour of the city in a cable car that ran over it. I was able to see an old mission friend, too. He hung out with us for the two-day trip. It was a lot of fun! When we got home, however, it seemed that everyone was terrified over this new flu called the Swine Flu. Rumors were swirling about school being canceled for Monday and Tuesday, which were later confirmed around 2am Monday morning. Great, two days off from school is never something to complain about. Monday morning we all received an email that the school would be closed until 'at least' May 6. Wow! What am I going to do for that long?! Not only that, it's not like we can travel. We were advised to stay in. Needless to say, it's been a boring few days, but it'll get better I hope. This weekend we are off to Puerto Vallarta for a few days. Next Wednesday my parents are supposed to come, but it seems that each day leads to more doubt on that aspect. I will be here for the long run, or at least until school is out on May 15!


Joseph Smith look-alike (actually a Governor of Zacatecas)


Cable Car

I got up today at 7:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. Why? Because of a stupid group of people! No, I am not talking about Mexicans. I will not single them out because they are all over the place. I am talking about construction workers. I realize the coolest part of the day is the morning, but they know they are going to be there after 9am when it starts warming up, why not do the quiet stuff first? Do they have to hammer the roads, mow the lawns, and trim the bushes (at the same time, mind you!) that early in the morning?

House Pictures

Gutted, but this is the idea. Read the real blog below, too!



The outside.


The Master Bedroom


Kitchen Pantry


Kid's Bedroom.


Bathroom.


Kitchen.


Living Room.

Los Guachimontones

Well on Thursday we were able to go to the Guachimontones. It was so much fun and pretty cool to imagine what happened there. For those who don't know about the Guachimontones, it is a location in Jalisco, Mexico. They are a series of circular pyramids created either 1000 B.C. or 300 B.C. The tour guide and Wikipedia were in disagreeance on that. At any rate, I zoned out a few times while I was there. There wasn't much to look at. It was cool and all, but my zoning out was thinking of the people that created these pyramids and this culture. After much thought I realized that it was probably the Jaredites in their migration to the north. It was so cool. I can't express that enough how amazing it was to be there and to know that. The archeologists haven't decided who was the group of people, except that they were an ancient people to this area. Of course, but luckily I know! And even if it wasn't the Jaredites, it would still be the Nephites or the Lamanites. But I doubt that by 300 B.C. the Nephites or Lamanites would have migrated so far north by that point. It was so cool. I'm excited to go there again with my parents and be able to discuss things out loud as opposed to in my head. Tomorrow we are going to Guanajuato, another ancient city. I'm excited to go there, too.

In other notes, Onna and I found a place to live! At first the rent was a little more than we wanted to spend, but I called the owner and explained it to him and he was fine with the rent that we wanted. It was nice, and it was exciting for us. The cool thing is that it is an old house, but an entirely new inside. He gutted the whole house and will put in all brand new appliances. We are excited. It feels like its a house that we built. Onna will move in there on June 1 more or less in preparation for our wedding at the end of July. How exciting!

Ok okay, I'm sorry.

It's so hard to blog when you keep meaning to and you always think that today will be the day, but instead more things just pile on that you think you should blog about and, eventually, it becomes so great a task that you just fight it all the way to the end. This is what happened to me. Of course a lot has happened in the last month, but the more that happened the more that piled and I just knew it was going to be too great a task for an ordinary man. Since I last posted I have received somewhat of a calling in my ward. It isn't a calling because I won't be around long enough to have it be known as a calling, but it is an assignment. My assignment is to attend mutual and help out with the Young Men. What a great assignment that has been! I love it! I love the young men, it's so fun to feel their spirits. Mutual is on a Friday night, so it is no easy task, but nevertheless, these guys come and enjoy themselves all night. And afterwords everyone plays soccer (of course). So far I have attended two mutuals. The first one the boys all brought in food they cooked themselves and we ate and we also learned how to iron correctly. The second one was watching Mormons and Mafia. Good movie. I have really enjoyed myself in that. Speaking of my ward, it has the youngest ward leadership I've ever heard of. The Bishop is early 30s, the Elder's Quorum President is 24, the Young Men's President is 21, the Young Women's President is 20. I am unsure of the HP and RS, but the counselors in each of these organizations (minus the Bishopric) are the same age, so it is very young. I like it though. School has been interesting. It has turned out to be quite easy. I am making straight A's without doing much studying. My days mostly consist of watching Seinfeld and surfing the Internet. In fact, the three seasons I brought of Seinfeld were all completed and I was lost, so I decided to buy the rest of the series. That's fun. I watch a few episodes a day. I actually saw an episode yesterday that I had never seen. It was a miracle! Jerry, George, and Elaine all decide to do some volunteer work. I'd never seen it. But it's cool to see the order of the episodes and how things happened in the series. I've also been watching quite a bit of sports. I was an avid watcher of the World Baseball Classic. The USA did good this time, but they still lost and tied for third, which is alright considering they got eighth last time. We haven't been on any trips in Mexico since I last posted. We were going to go to Guanajuato but Jill lost her wallet the day before so we were unable to go. We are going this weekend instead. And tomorrow we are going to Guachimontones. It's an archeological site. Wikipedia has some good info on it with pictures. Although I didn't travel around Mexico I did go home again for a weekend. Boy was that some trip. I got in on Thursday, Onna picked me up and we drove to Columbia to show the boys the temple. Christian had seen it before, but we weren't sure that Ethan had. It was a positive experience for them both I think. The purpose of going was to talk about eternal families and how mommy and daddy were going to go there and how they were going to go in a year with us. We also attempted to teach them to call me dad. Ethan picked it right up. He loved the idea of us being a family. Christian was not so fortunate. Actually, he refused to talk about it and walked away. Onna took him as I took Ethan and we each talked to them. Christian actually took it much worse than expected. He cried. Some welcoming! Oh well, he'll come around. It doesn't make me lose my excitement at all. On Friday night Kyle and MaryEllen came to Hartsville and we were able to hang out. We ate dinner first. I ate 50 chicken nuggets from McDonalds. Onna and I had a bet and she thought I couldn't do it. No one did. I proved them all wrong. And they knew that if I did do it I would be in a terrible mood the rest of the night. Not so! We were rockin' out to Guitar Hero all night. I surprisingly didn't get to much like a blob. In fact, I was able to bounce around playing Guitar Hero and wrestling later. I wasn't hungry for breakfast on Saturday though. We got up early and went to Ikea. Onna and I bought a good bit of stuff. We bought 4 chairs, a kitchen table, and a sofa. The ride home was interesting trying to fit everything in the truck. Onna and I were so squished in the back seat of the Tundra. We stopped at Wal Mart and I bought exactly what Kyle told me to buy--the biggest tarp they have. Well it was in fact WAY too big. It was 20' by 30'! It was a comfortable ride home from there on out. On Sunday we drove to the airport for me to return. Sad day. It was such a long trip home, though! We got to Charlotte and it was pouring, the planes were delayed. I didn't take off until 5:30, I missed my connection home in Atlanta and so from Atlanta I flew to Los Angeles and from Los Angeles to Guadalajara. I arrived at 5:30am instead of 8:30pm the night before. On top of that, my bag was gone. It didn't make it. How sad! Luckily we didn't have school on Monday, but even Tuesday I didn't have my bag until after school (luckily) and so I went without deodorant on Tuesday. And my contacts were in from Sunday morning until Tuesday night. They were burning. But all is well again. Onna and I have been avidly searching for a place to live come June. Hartsville doesn't have a lot to offer, but we are searching. We found a great place we love but it is just barely out of our price range so we'll see. While Onna was out looking in a neighborhood, my future son decided to unbuckle himself and jump out of the car. He must have done it quick and quiet (premeditated/planned) because Onna looked back and he was seated and next she saw him rolling on the street. What a scary thing! Luckily he's okay and it was a neighborhood road before the speed got up higher. He left with a few scrapes and bruises but is mostly doing just fine. Spring break starts next Friday and goes for two weeks--most of which I'll be spending in Arizona with my sisters. I'm pretty excited to see the Easter Pageant. I will try to write more. It's not like I have an excuse.


Wrestling.


Almost done with my nuggets.



Guitar Hero.


Brown Couch.