Monday Before Christmas

December 22, 2025

Monday was a relaxed day. This week California was predicted to be the wettest place on earth. So far we had lucked out and had decent weather.

There was this little elf who kept showing up at Alex’s house and somehow he managed to start showing up at my house. One day he even went for a ride on the Star Ship Enterprise.

The Elf wasn’t the only one who was somewhat fascinated by the Enterprise.

I think every one of our grandkids want to make lemonaide as soon as they arrive at our house. It has become a rather fun tradition.

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A recent review of 45 studies that included almost 10 million people suggests that diets high in ultra-processed foods are linked to more than 30 health conditions including depression, type 2 diabetes, cancer, and other health conditions.

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Sunday before Christmas

December 21, 2025

Sunday morning we all headed to church and then we were invited to the Odenwalders for dinner and to make gingerbread houses using graham wafers. It was a rather ingenious idea.

James and I made a pretty good house if I say so myself. James ate all the peanut butter shingles on the roof and left me with the candy corn shingles.

It is always good to see Mandy and her family. Alex and I went and picked Princess Lisa up from the airport around 8:30 in the evening.

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Many large companies such as Amazon and JPMorgan are requiring their employees to be in the office five days a week. This really annoyed many of the younger employees who started their careers working from home. However, they are starting to change their tune as they are watching their "in office" colleges get the lions share of raises and advancements.

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Happy New Year

Tuesday, January 6, 2026

We just got through another amazing Christmas. Four of the six kids and their families were able to make it and for a few days we had twenty four kids in the house. It got very loud at times but we had a ton of fun. Let me start at the beginning.

December 20, 2025

Alex, James and Adelaide left for San Diego Saturday morning and had a rather uneventful drive to San Diego.

They were excited to see us and we were very excited to see them. Princess Lisa had to work Saturday night so she arrived the next day.

A Walk Through Bethlehem

Wednesday, December 17, 2025

For the last few years our stake has combined with the Poway stake to set up a “Walk Through Bethlehem” experience. It was an amazing experience from the start but each year it just gets better.

For the last couple of years Lisa and I have volunteerd for one of the evenings. Last year I was a wise man and Lisa was an angel. This year we were both shop keepers. I had a vegetable stand and Lisa sold spices. I kept caller her a “Spice Girl”.

The experience started as you walked up to the front door. They had signs with quotes from the churches statement on the “The Living Christ”.

You then entered the front door and were led directly into the gym where they had hundreds of Nativities set up. They called them “Creches” but since that sounds like a made up word I’m going with Nativity. They were amazing. Perhaps my favorite was one from Africa. I think Alycia and Trevor should get one of these.

After spending an hour in the gym, we were then led out the back door into the village of Bethlehem. You walk into the Bethlehem market place filled with shops.

When Lisa and I were there it was packed and I was trying to sell people my vegetables. We were encouraged to keep our voices low so it would have a reverent atmosphere. I may not have done a great job of that but it was fun.

Here is a picture of me with the Spice Girl. Those are her spices in the background. She had these weird looking little goards that we figured someone picked up off their lawn because they looked cool. Before the night was over Moms curiosity got the better of her and she finally broke one open. It smelled amazing. She googled it. They were dried black limes. Knowing that, they smelled like limes. I’m not sure what the shop keepingers in ancient Bethlehem thought of her cell phone.

They had a lot of shops. The ones I can remember are, basket maker, bakery, candle maker, flower shop, grain, and then of course, my vegetables and moms spices. There were more though.

They even had centurions walking around who kept harassing me for my taxes. Mom buttered them up though. The kid next to mom is Zander, my buddy Jeffs kid.

We then left Bethlehem and watched Mary sewing something when suddenly the Angel Gabriel came and told her that she would become the mother of our Lord.

From there we went to Persia and saw the wise men looking at the new star, they knew the prophecies a new star would appear in the heavens as a sign of the birth of our Lord. They decided to follow the star.

And then it was back to some shepherds just outside of Bethlehem who were watching their flocks at night. An angel suddenly appeared to them and told them of the birth of our Lord.

We then went back to Bethlehem where we saw Mary and Joseph with their new little baby. Do you see the donkey just outside the stable? There were many live animals including chickens and goats. I didn’t see any sheep. I guess they couldn’t come up with any sheep.

From there we were led to a reception area where they had a video and hot chocolate and cookies. 

It was an amazing experience.

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Experts have long wondered why American poductivity has been higher than European productivity. They came to the conclussoin that it is due to the lack of air conditioning in Europe.

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Eyes

Friday, December 12, 2025

Last week Alycia commented in the Family Chat that she looked up Junes eye color and learned that they are called “sunflower eyes”. Blue eyes with a yellow-brown center around the iris. The next thing we know, Alex posted a picture of his eyes and asked what kind of eyes they are.

Kira then posted her eye and she figures that she might have “sunflower eyes”.

Justin then posted his eye and he figures his eyes are blue. If you look to the left of Justins iris you can see a small vertical line. Apparantly he had surgery on his eye when he was young.

So now we're on a roll.

Princess Lisa posted next and it was unanimously decided that her eyes are hazel.

Queen Lisa shared her eye next. We all agreed that she has blue eyes.

Lisa then took a picture of my eye. I’ve always said my eyes were brown but Lisa insists their hazel. I have no idea what the difference is between brown and hazel.

Alycia started all of this but it took her a while to post.

And then Sarah.

Ben has this interesting little dot in the lower right corner of his iris. He loves to call it his “eye freckle” or his “Jupitor dot”.

And finally Brandon. He made sure we could see as much of his eye ball as possible.

So in case you were interested, that is everyones eyes. At least everyone who shared them.

At one point during the whole exchange Alex said, “Can we talk about how eyes are so freaking cool? I love how cool eyes look”. I agree completely, eyes are cool.

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- Half of your brain is dedicated to your vision

- 80% of your memory is from what you see

- Babies can only see in black and white

- You can't sneeze with your eyes open

- Your eyes don't grow, your eye is the same size when you die as it was when you were born

- If your eye was a camera it would have 576 megapixels

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The To Do List

Thursday, December 11, 2025

While Lisa was enjoying Arizona, I was working on a very long “to do” list. Let me share it with you. In addition to all the jobs I got to cross off, I also started on the steps to the deck but I quickly saw that it was going to be big job and I wanted to knock off as many of these little jobs as I could. I find a lot of satisfaction checking off a to do list.

Friday evening, the day Lisa left, was our ward Christmas dinner. Whoever put together the program for the evening decided it would be fun if the Bishopric put on a little skit. That was way out of my comfort zone and it was the first time in my adult life that I did any kind of acting. I guess I did OK and it was kind of fun. Here is the script. I think Nick Sexton actually wrote the script himself. I have the text recorded in my journal but for my blog I may as well share the video.

The Spirit of Christmas Bishopric Skit

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZmIS2m2juE4nVKhpw541uNs67ohTyGLE/view?usp=sharing

I was quite nervous going into the skit but I think we did OK.

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A growing body of evidence suggests Sacagawea might have survived into old age — which would entirely change the story of America’s most iconic Native forebear.

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Millennial Choir & Orchestras

Wednesday, December 10, 2025

Four weeks ago Lisa and I drove to Arizona to watch Evan compete in the America’s cup.
Three weeks ago I flew to Arizona for the iTrade Show.
Two weeks ago Lisa and I drove to Arizona to be with the kids for Thanksgiving.
Last week Lisa flew to Arizona to watch Kira play in the Millenial Choir & Orchestra Christmas performance. I was sad that I couldn’t go but I have people in a factory waiting on me to send them CAD files of the smoker I’ve been developing.

In this picture you can see Kira standing with her Orchestra buddies. Mom and Ben took many pictures but I picked this one because Kira is doing her “broken neck” pose. It is something she has done as long as she could pose for pictures. It bugs her that she does this, but I love it and I think it is cute.

Mom flew out early (we got up at 4:15) and spend the day with the Palmers and then they all headed to the concert. Saturday morning Mom had breakfast with Bens family and I’m not really sure what she did the rest of the day. Sunday she went to church with Kira’s family and then she came home to me.

Mom had two very cool experiences last week. For the last few weeks she has been very focused on finishing up Christmas Stockings for Bens older girls. Since M is the only one technically living with them, she was only going to make her a stocking but when she thought about it she realized that Z is there every weekend and that wouldn’t be cool for M to have a stocking and not her, so she was going to make two stockings. We have only met their younger sister L a couple of times so we don’t know her well but she is at Ben’s house a lot, so in the end Lisa made three stocking for the three sisters.

She focused on those stockings ignoring everyone and everything else for a few weeks and really wanted to have them done to take to Arizona with us for Thanksgiving. She made it happen. Ben and his family were gone for that weekend but we drove over to his house and left them where Sharely asked us to.

Last week on the Friday Lisa arrived in Arizona, Z was at the house and was going through a tough time. She was complaining to Sharley about how she didn’t belong anywhere, everybody at the home hates her, she has no friends and she doesn’t know why she’s even alive because nobody wants her. She said that Ben and Sharley say they love her but she doesn’t know why and then she said, “I don’t even have a Christmas stocking”.

Sharley then told her to go look under the tree and she would find a gift wrapped with her name on it. Go get it and open it. The timing couldn’t have been better.

Just before Lisa left for Arizona last week she was going through her calendar for some reason, and noticed that Z birthday was coming up. Lisa just happened to have a great gift for her and she wrapped it up the day before we left. Lisa had breakfast with Ben’s family on Saturday morning to celebrate Freddies birthday and when Freddie was done with his gifts Lisa said, Z, don’t you have a birthday coming up. She then gave her the gift that she had wrapped just before she left San Diego. Sometimes Lisa is very inspired and these two gifts for Z made a huge impact on her.

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The first sign of civilization in an ancient culture is a femur (thighbone) that has been broken and then healed. In the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.

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