Westmoreland Asays

After mowing the lawn--my usual lunch-time ritual on work-from-home-Fridays--Aaron and I watered the vegetable garden. After we finished, Aaron told me to spray him, or something like that. I refused, on account of him being in street clothes in the beginning of spring in Western Oregon. He disappeared shortly thereafter, but returned just as quick, dressed only in swim trunks. So I proceeded to spray him using all seven modes on the hose attachment. Interestingly, this is the child who doesn't like to bathe. Contrastingly, Edward always requests that we put on his winter coat whenever he heads to the back yard to play, and he had no interest in getting hosed down. Yet he's the child who tries to negotiate a daily shower or bath.

The Church hand-picked me--one of only 400 world-wide--to answer some questions in a survey over the phone. The surveyor clearly didn't have much information on me--save my name and ward and birth date--as they asked a lot of questions that are easily accessible to church membership people. She also noted that only the highest ranking general authorities would have access to the data. Most of the questions were trying to gauge how much I use the various resources The Church makes available (e.g., web sites, distribution services, social services) and what kinds of technology do I use to access information, while few (if any) were on my personal beliefs or perceptions about The Church and its history. But the most interesting one asked what I thought The Church could do to encourage more young people to serve missions. My first impression was to make it financially rewarding (i.e., award scholarships to a church-funded school after you finish, or completely subsidize the two yea

Original Megan will be boarding with us for the coming months. We picked her up at her friend's house in the old Gubser 'hood, after returning from a gathering at our old Branch President's house in Lake Oswego; besides Megan's sisters , I really only knew one other person there (dare I say that most of the attendees were much older than me?) and with whom I hung out with (and whose sister's boyfriend (now husband) squatted in my Beaverton apartment). Not to toot our own horns, but we roll out the red carpet for our vistors: Meg steam-cleaned all of the carpeting in the house the day before Megan arrived, and I fixed Megan's laptop the day after. Or was it just coincidence . . . regardless, there will be no more walking around the house in the nude.

I stayed up a little later than usual last night so I could read this relevant essay on extreme commuting , which I qualify for on occasion when traffic is bad. I can relate to many of the points the author brought out, including the one that we commuters tend to fudge in describing to others how long it really takes to go from door to door (sometimes you just have to do the math to really see how long it does take). Change may be in the air, but nothing until next year at the earliest--the tax man loves people who move out of their primary residence before two years have passed.

Aaron frequently tells us how he feels towards us, but he's figured out how to be humorous while doing so. Instead of saying something like "I love you to Cybertron and back," he now says "I love you tube." This has been influenced by the many episodes of original Transformers that he has watched on YouTube over the last few months.

More evidence that the "real" mormon football school is on the West Coast. The Ducks are always getting guys like this. Some of you will also notice a familiar name near the end of the article; this could have been my brother-in-law if Bart's and my talks of being the Huxford-Hubbies had actually come to fruition.

We finalized the purchase of our first vacation home today. 2300 square feet of ugly run-downness in Springville, Utah. I'm not sure we'll ever get a chance to stay in it, let alone visit it in person. We actually partnered with Maren and Sean to fix the house and re-sell it quickly for a profit. Maren negotiated an awesome deal with the owner (30% less than its original asking price), and Meg and I are providing the financing to repair it, market it, and sell it. Meg has wanted to do this for a while, so she is excited about doing the work, at least on our end. Maren and Sean will coordinate fixing the place up (they live just a few miles away), while Meg acts as the banker for the deal. We hope to beautify and sell the house within 4-6 months--the sooner the better, because we'll be paying interest every day on it until it is off our hands.