I received a postcard from a good friend of mine actually someone I consider as close as family. Brian Hill and his wife Callie Graduate from BYU this Friday. I'm very proud of them, and happy they keep me up to date on what is going on with them. Here is a copy of the post card they sent to me.


Great Job Brian and Callie!! They have their own blog page so if you want to check it out see my links.

This past Saturday I went down to the bay area to attend a commitment ceremony for my friend Mark and his significant other Wil. I had never been to a gay wedding before so I really didn't know what to expect. It was pretty much like a regular marriage ceremony except there was no bride only 2 grooms. Some of you might wonder why I would attend this type of an event because I'm LDS and we don't condone homosexuality, well I will tell you. I have been friends with Mark for 30 years, although he didn't come out to me until about 20 years ago. My friendship with him has nothing to do with his sexual orientation, in the same way that my being Mormon has nothing to do with his being my friend.
Mark and I met when he was 12 and I was 14. His family moved into my neighborhood around the corner from me. My friends and I met him the day he moved in and we became friends from that day forward. Yes we may disagree on many things, from politics to religion but that never mattered to us or changed our friendship. We were best friends all the way up until I graduated high school and moved up to the Sacramento area. Over the years we have not stayed as close as we once were as children, but we've always kept in touch and have visited each other on many different occasions.
I met Marks significant other about 2 years ago when I went down to visit with Mark before I moved to Utah. The next time I saw him was on Saturday. They both looked happy and I am happy for them. It was good to see Marks family as well. I haven't seen them since I went down for the funeral of his mother. She was a sweet woman and I was truly sorry that she passed away. I am going to post a few pictures from the commitment ceremony. I didn't get many pictures and most of my pictures are not very good but they are all I have. By the way Mark is the one with no hair and Wil is the one with hair.



This picture is of Marks Dad Alex.

A few weeks back I had the opportunity to go out with the full time missionaries in my ward. Although I wasn’t really feel like going out with them that day I understood since I had served a mission myself how hard it is for the missionaries to get members to help them when they need a chaperon. I told them I would the week before and I didn't want to cancel on them. We didn't have any success with getting to see the people the missionaries had set up appointments with, meaning we didn't get into anyone's house. Either no one answered the door or whom ever we were there to see was not home. As we were going to our last visit, I crossed Fair Oaks blvd at Sunrise east way and as I got across the intersection I started to hear a noise coming from the right rear tire. It was a rhythmic noise like something was hitting the wheel well. My first thought was I might have a flat tire but it didn’t feel like a flat, however I didn’t like the sound it was making so I pulled over and parked to take a look at my tire. It wasn’t full on dark yet but it was hard to see clearly as it was just dark enough to not be able to see clearly. We all got out of the car and looked at the tire, I could see something sticking out of the tire but it wasn’t flat. I went back around my car to get the flashlight I keep in the back seat on the driver’s side so I could see what was causing the problem. As I was on the other side of the car the sister missionaries felt the tire and discovered that we had come across a fork in the road.

Not only had we come to a fork in the road but it attached itself to my tire.

Word of advice when you come to a fork in the road don't run over it. I wish I could say I saw the fork but unfortunately I didn't. I reached down and tried to pull the fork out of my tire but one tine was stuck completely in and as I moved the fork I could hear the air escaping from the tire. We decided to just let it be until we finished with our appointment and then deal with the tire at that point. The person we were to meet with got called in to work so again our appointment fell through. We went back to the car and the tire was still holding air. I didn’t want to change the tire there as I was in a dress and didn’t feel comfortable working on my car on that street. We were only a few blocks from my apartment and I thought if I drive slowly we should be able to get home and I can change my clothes and tackle the poor deflating tire. As I pulled out on to Fair Oaks blvd driving really slow so the fork which was still hitting my car wouldn’t harm the car too much. I was only going 20 mph and could hear the rhythmic thumping of the fork going around with the tire however before I got up the road much farther the fork came out of my tire. At this point I thought now that the fork is gone the air will now flow freely from the tire and it will be flat soon. I then proceeded to drive a bit faster as I didn’t wish have a completely flat tire before I got home. We did make it back to my apartment and I parked in my space. The sister missionaries helped me get my spare out of the back as well as the jack and tools. I went into my apartment and changed in to more suitable clothing and had a rough time getting the lug nuts loose. I appreciate the fact that the lug nuts must be tight but when it comes to taken them off my hand I kind of wished they hadn’t been tightened by an air gun. We were successful at getting the tire changed and the spare mounted. My next project was to go get the tire repaired the next day. I told the missionaries this was a journal entry event, I mean how many people can say they came to a fork in the road and it deflated them. Or a fork in the road is not always something you want to find.

When I got to the tire store and told the guy at the counter I had run over a fork in the road, he said “Your kidding” I said “No I’m not” he then said “Well I guess when you come to a fork in the road you need to make a decision, left or right but not over.” Good advice. I wish I had an actually picture of the fork but it came out in the road and I wasn’t going to stop to try and find it. I just hope it didn’t get stuck to someone else’s tire.

My nephews Bryan works for the Arizona forestry service, as a fire fighter every summer on the Kaibab and at the base camp there is a pond. Bryan decided that the pond needed some ducks on it. His dad gets chicks & ducks as well as geese at his hardware store every year so he picked up some baby ducks for the pond. After keeping them in a container until they were old enough to survive on the pond Bryan put the 4 ducks he got on the pond. Well the next day when they got back to base camp they couldn’t only find one duck, and that duck would not come out of the middle of the pond for a long time. It is unknown what happened to the others but they figure it must have been a wild animal that ate them. He went back to his fathers store and got what ducks were left as well as a goose. (the goose was not picked on purpose as he wasn't sure it wasn't a duck at the time)
This time they decided that at night they would keep the animals in the container at night to protect them from the wild animals at least until they are old enough to defend themselves. Well again after returning to camp they found that several of the ducks had lost their heads over night. They figured they must have stuck their heads out of the slits in the container and a wild animal bit them off. It would apeer that the ducks are not the smartest animal in the yard, as all the ducks finally either died or just disappeared, leaving only the goose. As a matter of fact the goose became quite friendly with the staff and really thought he was a person. He would follow them around and take food from their hands. They named the goose Otis and he became the mascot for their little troop. Bryan would bring Otis down from the mountain when they had their days off so he could take car of him and make sure he got fed. As you can see in this picture Otis didn’t have a problem with people or kids and wanted to be around them.











He was like a pet dog, at night on the mountain he would return to the container when it got dark knowing that’s where he was safe and they would let him out during the day when they were at camp and he would play in the pond and walk around with the firer fighters. These pictures are from when we had a family reunion in the summer of 2007 and Otis was right there enjoying the picnic with everyone else.

After the summer was over Bryan went back to school up in Provo and couldn't leave the goose at the pond for fear it would be eaten and if you know anything about geese they are social birds and need to socialize, so leaving him by himself would be too mean as he would have no one to play with. Otis move to live with my sister for a short time until legal reasons they were forced to get rid of all their animals. (that's another story all together and I will not go into that one for now.) My mother didn't want Otis to be killed or taken away so she volunteered to take him. My brother built a pen for him in my parents back yard out by the garden. My dad lets him out when he is working in the garden and plays with him. My mother has told me they have races across the yard, which Otis always wins. Well a little while ago my mother sent me a new picture of Otis because they found a surprise in his cage. My dad went out to let him out as he was going to be working in the garden again and when he got to the pen Otis was sitting by the door. He went to open the door and Otis stood up. This is what they found.
So now my dad calls him Otena since we now have discovered that he is really a she, unless some how a boy goose can lay eggs. Obviously she had laid a few before they discovered what she was doing. So now instead of having a goose named Otis my parents now have a goose named Otena.