Christmas Memories

Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. It helps that gifts are given, school is temporarily suspended and the holiday basically lasts an entire month. The lights, hot chocolate, caroling and family dinners are enjoyable, too. For me, Christmas has everything you could ever want in a holiday -- IF you don't let the "Christmas crazies" get to you. When I was a kid Christmas was absolute pure joy. There was nothing negative about the holiday (except that it never came fast enough), but as an adult I began to feel a little differently about it. I would often find myself searching for that impossible-to-find toy for one of my kids at every store this side of the Mississippi. Sometimes on December 23rd I would be at Wal-mart at 2 in the morning wandering aimlessly and zombie-like through the almost empty aisles, searching for that perfect gift. It was, in a word, stressful. And I didn't like it. I needed a way to make the holiday magical again, and I found it by participating in the Sub-for-Santa program at my workplace. Now I was buying gifts for disadvantaged children, and suddenly Christmas took on a whole new meaning -- one that it didn't even have when I was a kid. I love seeing the joy of Christmas through a child's eyes. I love being a part of that joy, and those moments when they receive a gift that they fall instantly in love with are priceless. One of my most memorable Christmas holidays growing up was the year I turned 13. It was, as anyone who knew me back then will tell you, a difficult time for me. I was trying to figure out who I was, and instead I figured out who I wasn't -- which was at least a beginning. Eliminate the things you don't want in life and eventually you'll be left with the things you do want. At least, that's the theory. I was angry at the world and there was absolutely no reason for it, other than perhaps puberty. I got in fights at school, I skipped class, and dressed in black the entire year. I was disrespectful to authority and got caught up in an "eye for an eye" mentality. It led me to do things I deeply regret. The greatest gift I have ever received was the gift of being caught while doing one of those things, and it was the beginning of a reformation in my life. I had a wood shop class in school that I loved, and my parents were planning to give me a band saw for Christmas that year. When they learned of my bad behavior, they took it back. I knew that on Christmas morning there would only be a few gifts for me under the tree, and I completely agreed with the decision my parents had made. But I enjoyed Christmas anyway, just as much as I always did. I enjoyed seeing my family members open their gifts. I enjoyed being with them. I enjoyed the Christmas lights and music and caroling like I did ever year. It was still the holiday I loved, even without the band saw that I had previously thought I couldn't live without. My sister and I shared a room until I was 12, when we moved to a larger house. We were grateful to have our own rooms after that, but on Christmas Eve we slept in the same room by choice. "Slept" might not be the right word, as Christmas joy filled us with excitement and anticipation--two emotions that aren't very conducive to sleep. My parents had a rule that we couldn't wake them up before 6am on Christmas morning, and it was quite possibly the most difficult to keep rule they ever made. Most of the time we had Christmas at home, but I remember going to Virginia one year, where my mom's parents lived, at Christmastime. I was fairly young--somewhere between 9 and 11. I got a chemistry set and an electronics kit that year. I remember sitting in the living room in the dark listening to Mannheim Steamroller and watching the snow come down outside, highlighted by the streetlight near our home. I remember feeling so at peace in those moments. I remember Christmas lights and Christmas caroling. Someone always had the bright idea to sing "O Holy Night," and it always fell apart at the climax, with those pesky high notes that are just out of reach. I remember going caroling with my French class one year in sub-zero temperatures. I loved the French Christmas carols such as "Noel Nouvelet" (Sing We Now of Christmas) and "Il Est Ne" (He Is Born). We always went to my grandpa's house on Christmas Day for dinner (he lived about an hour away from us). It's a tradition that has continued into adulthood. I learned to play piano primarily so I could play hymns, but with a secondary goal of being able to play Christmas songs. It's no coincidence that when I wanted to release an album of new age piano music, I decided to make it a Christmas album. Christmas is rich with meaning and tradition and joy, and it will always be close to my heart. The first Christmas I remember was when I was 3. I got a pair of toy pistols, a cowboy hat and a spring horse for Christmas that year. When we moved a few months later, I stood guard over my spring horse to make sure it wasn't left behind. It was the last thing loaded on the truck. Most years we would go to Park City the week after Christmas and spend a week in a condo, skiing and playing board and card games. I loved sitting in the hot tub until I was about to pass out from the heat, then diving into the snow to cool off and getting back in the hot tub again to warm up. I loved spending time with family, and my Christmas memories are truly some of my most treasured experiences. Every year, Christmas comes a little bit faster and goes a little quicker. Every year it's a struggle to find real meaning in the season without getting caught up in the stress and commercialism. But it remains, and will always remain, my favorite holiday and my favorite time of year. As I'm writing this, Christmas Eve is upon us. Tomorrow the holiday will come and soon another Christmas will have passed. I look forward to the many wonderful Christmases ahead.

Thoughts on Happiness

I have been chasing happiness my whole life, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. There are occasions when it's seemed like I should be happy and can't figure out why I'm sad. Externally everything may be lining up just the way I want: decent job, good friends and family life. But happiness, while affected by external forces, is something that only occurs on the inside. Outward accomplishments and possessions do not guarantee it. Some of the happiest people I know have very little in terms of wealth. But happiness is its own kind of currency, and arguably worth far more than gold or precious gems.

Here are a few things I've found that positively contribute to the kind of wholesome, lasting happiness I always want to feel:

1. Faith. No matter how much wisdom and wealth I gain, there are certain things I simply can't control. Any one of the people I love could be called home at any time, and so could I. Faith is the only force in my life that I can turn to when these worst case scenarios occur, or when I find myself becoming anxious and fearful about the future. My faith assures me that God is in charge, that He knows what He is doing and that He is a kind and benevolent being who wants everyone who has ever walked the earth to be truly and everlastingly joyful.
2. Love. I once went through a difficult period of time when I felt very alone and depressed. Even though I wasn't alone and was very loved, I couldn't see it and didn't allow myself to feel it. The truth is that I didn't think I was worth loving, and anyone who did profess to love me obviously didn't know the real me. I looked inward for answers and found nothing, but when I looked outward and started serving and loving others--thinking more of their needs than of my own--I began to heal. Love rescued me from my self-created prison.
3. Truth. There are times when I've made mistakes and haven't wanted to admit them. But sin and sadness fester in darkness, and the light of truth is the only cure. When I am faced with a choice between truth and lies, the path of lies often looks easier, but it actually just goes in circles. By stepping through the pain of truth and confessing my weaknesses and failings I release the burden of guilt and allow myself to be made whole again.
4. Beauty. I love to watch the paintings of light that God makes for us every single day in the sky. I love to get outside into the mountains or the desert and be one with nature. I love beautiful music, beautiful acts of service, beautiful people (we are ALL beautiful) and beautiful words. I love to lift those around me and I love to be lifted by them. I love to feel the wide range of positive and negative emotions we all experience, because it means I'm alive. I love being human: growing and hurting, falling and getting back up, always learning and moving forward even if my progress is almost imperceptible. Every day is a gift, every soul is precious in the eyes of God, and every new experience helps me understand who I am and why I'm here.

Best Friends

I have been fortunate throughout my life to always have a best friend with whom I shared everything and spent most of my time. My first best friend was named Sun, although most others called him Hung. He was from Vietnam and we met when we were in first grade. I remember playing Atari games at his house and playing with paper airplanes. Whenever I got a chance I tried to eat lunch or dinner or a snack while I was there, because Vietnamese food is amazing. His parents never liked it when I ate their food, though. Sun had an older sister named Gna (pronounced like the word "gnaw") who was always way too serious and used to watch these hilarious Vietnamese soap operas featuring men with long hair and robes and swords shouting at each other constantly (at least, that's how it seemed to me). Sun wasn't LDS and his uncle who lived with them smoked. One day I found his pack of cigarettes and when no one was looking I threw them in the garbage. When he went to look for them and they weren't there he was furious. I don't think my attempt to make him quit smoking worked :) That same uncle was always washing and waxing his car, a yellow Pontiac Firebird that he was obviously the pride of his life. The first time I walked into a Thai restaurant it smelled exactly the way Sun's house had when I was younger, and it felt like I'd stepped back in time. In general I don't remember the end of a friendship, probably because there's rarely any kind of final decision or discussion involved but rather a gradual drifting away. Around 4th grade that happened with me and Sun, so I started spending time with Marc, a Hopi Indian with a hilarious sense of humor. Marc loved sports and although his family owned a Nintendo I could rarely convince him to play it because he always wanted to be outside playing soccer or football or basketball or baseball. We went through one phase together where we said "mooooooo cow" really loudly to everyone we met. Later we worked the word "wonton" into every sentence. Marc also introduced me to combing my hair, which I had never done until I met him (my mom just cut it so short that I didn't need to comb it). He also introduced me to the wonders of hair gel. When I was 13 I went with Marc's family to a ranch near Snowflake Arizona for their family reunion. At one point the two of us went "hunting" in the woods, which is something neither of us had ever really done before. Marc had a 12-gauge shotgun and when we spotted a bird he took aim and fired. I don't think he actually hit he bird, but he hit the branch it was perched on and the bird fell to the ground and then the branch landed on it, killing it. We walked over and looked at it lying on the ground and both felt so sad that our careers as hunters began and ended that same day. After the family reunion we went to Winslow, Arizona to visit Marc's grandma. While we were there we went to swimming hole near Camel Rock and jumped off a high cliff (probably 20 or 30 feet) into the water. It was really fun. I moved across town and didn't see Marc much after that, but he worked at the same company as me for a little while and came to my oldest daughter's first birthday party. After living in Arizona for many years he moved back to Utah recently and my wife and I joined him and his wife for dinner. After spending only a few minutes with him I could totally understand why the two of us had been such good friends. When I was 13 a boy named Seth moved in two houses down from me. I was riding my bike back from the church after a scout meeting and saw him in the front yard mowing his lawn. Here is the content of our very first conversation, word for word: Me - "Mow the lawn, man." Him - "Go to scouts, man." (Both statements were said with a lot of attitude.) From those humble beginnings began one of my most memorable friendships. Seth was the least judgmental person I have ever known, a quality I have worked hard to emulate in later life. We skipped a lot of school together and got into trouble sometimes, but by high school we were headed in a better direction and he joined the swim team with me. I was with him when I met Brenda at an outdoor ice skating rink. Brenda was with a friend named Angie and Seth and I decided to skate circles around them because we thought they were cute. I was wearing a Timpview shirt and Angie said to me, "so you guys are from Timpview?" From there we began a conversation that lasted until well after closing time and resulted in me getting Brenda's phone number. When Seth died in a gun accident two years later Brenda was the one who got me through that difficult time. She and I were like family, and I practically lived at her house. Her brother and I both had an interest in computers and her sister was a deep thinker who used to ask me questions I still can't answer. Her mom cooked amazing meals and I developed a taste for skim milk, which is what they drank at their house. I also remember visiting Brenda's grandma several times, once even going there by myself because I was passing through Heber after a day of skiing in Park City. She was one of the kindest people I have ever met.

Being Prepared

Several years ago I decided to do something I hadn't done in a long time -- and actually haven't done since: go mountain biking. I used to do it all the time when I was younger, but life got busy and I stopped going at some point. I had wanted to get back into exercising and thought mountain biking would be a good option, so I made plans one evening to drive to Hobble Creek Canyon where I knew there was a mountain biking trail. The sun had already set when I started and at one point in the trail there was a very large tree root. I carefully went around it and made a note of it so I wouldn't get into an accident on the way back down as the daylight continued to phase. I didn't see anyone else on the trail while I was going up, but on the way back down I saw a man walking with two bikes while his wife walked in front of him. She was holding her arm, and I stopped to talk to them. Apparently she had hit that tree root that I narrowly avoided and landed on her collar bone, breaking it. There was more than a mile yet to walk and she was in pretty severe pain. I had brought a first aid kit with me and was able to give her some painkillers and a sling. I walked the rest of the way back with them and when we got to the car her husband and I gave her a blessing (I had also brought consecrated oil with me). Afterward she looked me in the eyes and said, "Thank you for being prepared." I have absolutely no doubt that I was sent to that particular place in time specifically so I could help her.

The Duplex

From about ages 7 to 12 my family lived in a small duplex at the foot of Grandview Hill in Provo. There were only 2 bedrooms so my sister and I had to share one of the rooms, which prompted a lot of arguments about nightlights (I preferred to sleep without a nightlight but my sister insisted on it). The carpet was green shag and the appliances were avocado and mustard-colored. The cupboards were very dark and it was a 70's house through and through.

I have a lot of memories of living in that house, but a few in particular stand out such as the time my dad broke his thumb. He was exercising with weights (dumbbells) and somehow slammed his thumb in between two of them at high velocity. He immediately said to me, "get a bowl of water!" I thought it was strange at the time and I still think is strange. I really should ask him about that sometime :) I remember him putting his broken thumb in the water, and it turned red from his blood.

One time we built a snow cave in the back yard. It's hard to imagine Provo even getting enough snow to build a snow cave now, but I guess it happened back then. We also had a raft and would occasionally go boating on Utah Lake, which was much deeper and maybe a little cleaner than it is now. I used to love getting sick, which sounds a little weird but it was kind of fun to stay home and watch game shows on TV instead of going to school.

We had some outdoor cats that we occasionally fed while we lived there. We named one of them Calico and the other one Suzy Q. Suzy Q had babies and I remember playing with the kittens, but one day we found one dead and soon afterwards the rest of them died. I was told they had contracted distemper.

One time we were driving in our neighborhood and my dad pointed out a barley plant. I got the idea from what he said that barley could be eaten, just like walnuts or fruit from a tree. So I went back later by myself and tried to munch on it. Needless to say, it didn't go very well. I think something got a little bit stuck in my esophagus and I had a hard time swallowing for like a year, but I was too embarrassed to say anything to anyone. Some lessons have to be learned the hard way :)

There was another time when I went to a cub scout meeting and one of the boys had worked with his dad to disassemble a battery and make a little display of how they worked. I wanted to do the same thing, so I went outside with a hammer and some batteries and started whacking them. I ended up getting battery acid in my eye, but fortunately my mom was home and immediately put me under the sink for like 15 minutes to flush it out.

When I was 12 years old (specifically on October 28th) we moved across town to a new house where my sister and I could have our own rooms AND since we owned a house for the first time my parents bought me a dog (a terrier I named Sammy). The day we moved I was standing on the tailgate of our banana yellow pickup truck and slipped. My elbow landed between the tailgate and the truck and it hurt so badly I thought I might have broken it, so my mom took me to the emergency room. It turned out it wasn't broken, but I did need three stitches. The doctor told me I might feel some pushing and pulling, but it was one of the most painful experiences of my life. Either "pushing and pulling" was code for "pain that would make a grown main faint" or the local anesthetic wasn't working at all, because I swear I felt everything. The elbow may not seem like a very sensitive part of the body, but when someone starts pushing a needle and thread through it without anesthesia it definitely gets noticed.

I learned to cross-country ski while I was living in that duplex, went through about 12 skateboards (I kept leaving them in places where they got run over by cars), made new friends, graduated from primary, got hit by a car while riding my bike, caught snakes, built clubhouses, played at the GRA park, went sledding and explored and played and went on the rope swing on Grandview hill, and did a million other things while living in that house that I look back on with fondness. Mine was truly a blessed childhood, and I can honestly say that the Grandview area is still one of my favorite places in the world.

Early Childhood Memories

I once read a quote that said something like, "Childhood is a lot like being drunk: everyone remembers what you did except you." I've never been drunk, but I have been a child and remember very, very little about the experience. Much of what I do know has probably been pieced together from stories my parents and others have told me throughout my life, but here a few ACTUAL memories from my childhood that have stood the test of time.

My earliest memory is of living in some red brick apartments in Orem, Utah just west of University Mall. I think I loved there from about ages 2 through 3. We lived in a basement apartment, and one of our neighbors was a little girl who, according to my mom, was one of the most hyper kids who ever walked the face of the earth. My first memory is of her stomping on my toy organ and breaking it. I also remember being kicked in the eye while walking past her in the swingset (probably my fault for getting too close), and one time she and I were picked up by the police while walking down an island in the middle of a busy street (State Street). I still remember thinking it was pretty cool that I got to ride in a police car :) I also fell off the bed while we were living in those apartments and cracked my head open, and I still remember screaming while the doctor shoved me under the sink in his office to clean the blood off my head before giving me stitches. My last memory of those apartments is of the day we moved to Provo. I was worried that my favorite Christmas present, a spring horse that I could ride, would be forgotten. So I sat by it as I watched everything get loaded into the truck, and my spring horse was the very last item that was loaded before the door was closed.

Our new house was an actual house. It was located in East Provo and had white wood siding. There was a basement apartment with a young married couple and on Halloween just after my 4th birthday I decided to go trick-or-treating to their house ... at 10am. They were more than a little surprised to see me there so early in the day, and they hadn't bought candy yet so they gave me a banana :) A few months later I decided to try my hand at shoplifting. Allen's Drug Store was about a block away and my friend and I went there with a friend. It was Easter time and we decided the Cadbury eggs looked good, so we took a few and put them in our pockets, walked outside and around the corner and ate them. Then (and this will betray my abundant lack of criminal experience), we walked back INTO the store -- probably with chocolate all over our hands and faces -- to get more. Someone must have recognized us because our moms both arrived a few minutes later. To this day I have never forgotten the spanking my mom gave me.

We had a garden while living in that white house. I didn't mind the green and yellow beans they grew, and I think I even liked the peas. But I drew the line at zucchini. One night at dinner my mom was trying to get me to eat some, and it tasted so bad I was gagging. The main dish was stroganoff, which I liked, so my mom said to me, "Maybe if you eat the zucchini with the stroganoff it won't be so bad." So I tried it, and threw up all over the kitchen floor (which, unfortunately, was carpeted). Now that I am an adult, zucchini tastes completely different. Maybe my parents just had a bad variety or something, but if I ever again taste anything that reminds me even remotely of the way that zucchini tasted when I was a kid I'll spit it out of my mouth so fast even Spiderman wouldn't be able to move quickly enough to avoid getting hit by it.

There was an apartment complex across the street from where we lived that had a brick planter box, and one day I was climbing onto the planter box and jumping off when another little boy decided to join me. His name was Clayton, and he was my first real friend. I liked playing outside so much that I didn't want to come in for any reason. Being a boy, it was easy to find a way to use the bathroom without actually having to go indoors. And when I got thirsty, well, there was a convenient gutter filled with water that I could drink out of. One day when I wasn't feeling well my mom said to me, "Were you drinking from the gutter? Our neighbor said she saw you." I vehemently denied it, but that was the last time I drank from the gutter. Having to go inside for water was a small price to pay to avoid having to lie in bed for an entire day.

I remember the day my sister was born. My parents had been talking about how exciting it would be for me to have a sister and I was really on board with the whole idea. When it was time for my mom to go to the hospital I was shocked and more than a little displeased to discover that my uncle had been assigned to take care of me. I had thought my parents and I were a team! A couple years later that same uncle let me watch "Raider's of the Lost Ark" and I had nightmares for weeks. My parents never asked him to babysit again. (Maybe that was his plan all along :) )

My great-grandmother (my dad's dad's mom) lived about a mile away from us and we visited her often. She always wore sneakers, often complained about her ingrown toenail, worked harder than anyone I have ever met before or since (and she was in her eighties by the time I knew her), and made the world's best peanut brittle. To this day I have still never tasted anything that compared to hers. She worried about tripping over the vacuum chord and falling, so when I did chores at her house I always kept the vacuum chord coiled around my arm, letting out just enough to do the job but keep it off the floor. When my parents bought an upright vacuum I was vacuuming at home one day and did that exact same thing. My mom kindly informed me that it wasn't necessary to do that when I vacuumed at our house, and it made the job of vacuuming much easier for me. My great-grandmother loved getting Christmas cards and saved every single one she received. I remember seeing them strung up all over her house. She also adored her iris garden, and would invite my family over every spring to see them in bloom. She had two big walnut trees in her back yard and I enjoyed climbing on them. We occasionally visited my other great-grandmother who lived in Layton (my dad's mom's mom). She always gave me a snicker's bar and her husband always gave me a crisp dollar bill.

I lost my first tooth when I was about four or five years old. I was walking down the sidewalk chewing purple bubblegum and suddenly there was something crunchy in it :) I got a blue bike with red tires for Christmas a few months after I turned five. I still remember walking into the living room and seeing it sitting next to the tree in all its glory. I could hardly contain my excitement. My parents used to take walks on Sundays, window shopping in downtown Provo. I started bringing my bike with me and learned how to ride on those walks. I had training wheels for a while, but one day I was riding around the neighborhood and an across-the-street neighbor noticed that I wasn't really using the training wheels and offered to take them off for me. Soon after that I was riding my bike in bare feet and parked it on the lawn, only to step on a bee. I had an allergic reaction to that sting and had to be rushed to the hospital, but I've been stung since without a similar effect. I also had a piece of ply wood fall on me one time and got a splinter so deep we had to go to the doctor to get it removed.

All things considered, I had a pretty fantastic childhood. There are good and bad memories, of course, but I knew I was loved and my parents took good care of me and tried to start me off heading in the right direction. When I tried to wander off in a different direction, they did their best to get me back in line. Now that I am a father I hope I am trying to pass their legacy of love on to my own children.

Family Vacations

When I was growing up my parents took my sister and me on some pretty memorable family vacations. They weren't always memorable in a GOOD way, like the time we hit a deer in Spanish Fork canyon while traveling home from a vacation at night, but I am grateful my parents took the time to help us explore the world.

When I was quite young my parents bought a timeshare condominium in Park City, and I have so many great memories there. The first time we went they had a microwave, and we were pretty excited because we didn't have one at home. So we bought a bag of large colored marshmallows and microwaved them. One year when we went there was so much snow that we opened our back door and there was snow piled almost to the very top of it.

We had two weeks in Park City, one was in August and the other was the last week of the year (between Christmas and New Year's). So a lot of my childhood New Year's celebrations were spent in Park City. I liked it there for a lot of reasons, but in particular I think I liked the fact that we weren't always rushing about trying to get as many things done as possible while we were traveling. Park City was relaxing (they even had a hot tub and sauna) and we spent a lot of our time just playing card games or monopoly or shopping on main street or skiing or wandering around the miniature mall they had there or going on the alpine slide.

By contrast, our traveling family vacations could sometimes be pretty frenzied. My mom was from Virginia, and we went there several times for Thanksgiving and at least once for Christmas. I remember staying up late one night while in Virginia to finish the 6th "Work and the Glory" book, which ended with the martyrdom of Joseph Smith. When I was 18 I went to Virginia and we visited Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's house. It was being remodeled at the time and all of the furniture was covered in sheets. There was also no heat in the building, and I wasn't prepared for such cold weather. There is something about East Coast cold that makes Utah winters seem like spring by comparison, even when there is snow on the ground in Utah and no snow in Virginia. I think it's the humidity. I had a similar experience while trying to visit the Smithsonian one time. We took the Subway into Washington D.C. only to discover that the museums were all closed. I still remember huddling on one of the porches trying to get warm while we figured out what to do.

One time while visiting Virginia we decided to take a trip to Williamsburg. My dad wrecked our rental car, so we decided to save a little money and rented a used car from a place called "Fancy Flivvers." It was a really old Plymouth and we all wondered if it would be reliable, but we wanted to see Williamsburg so we took the risk. Unfortunately the engine caught on fire while we were driving back. We pulled over to the side of the road and some friendly people were kind enough to offer us a ride to the Richmond airport so we could rent another car. As we were driving my parents saw a hitchhiker and decided to give him a ride. They were feeling generous because of the help they had received, but picking up a random hitchhiker outside Richmond Virginia at 2 in the morning is a little different than helping a family whose car is broken down on the side of the freeway. My sister immediately crawled into the front seat, and I stayed in the back with our new "friend" while he went on and on about how his boss howled at the moon and other completely nonsensical things. Looking back, I suspect he was high. Or crazy. Or both. But fortunately not homicidal :)

One time we took a trip to New York, and I remember the sky in New York city being red and it really scared me. I liked upstate New York, though. We visited Palmyra and the sacred grove and stayed at my aunt and uncle's house. In the middle of the night I wet the bed, and was so embarrassed about it (I was like 8 years old) that I didn't tell anyone. I just wadded up my underwear and threw it under the bathroom sink, hoping no one would ever find it. About a month later, at Christmas time, we received a package from my aunt and uncle that included several wrapped gifts and my underwear that I had hoped to never see again. My aunt had even washed it for me :) I still haven't recovered from that embarrassment.

One time we visited New England. I remember going to the world's oldest candy store in Salem, Massachusetts and visiting Bunker Hill and Paul Revere's house. We also went to Boston and my one goal was to try a bowl of New England clam chowder in the place that made it famous. On another trip we stayed with my uncle in Connecticut over Thanksgiving. It was on that trip that I discovered the artist Enya, and also got in a huge fight with my mom's overly competitive family while playing the game "Encore." The same thing happened when I tried to play that game 20 years later, and I have avoided it ever since. Some games just aren't worth the contention :)

When I was in 4th grade we drove to Denver and caught a train to Burlington, Iowa for a family reunion in Nauvoo. I loved being on the train, watching the sunrise over the corn field of Nebraska and stealing half and half from the dining car :) It was really fun to be able to move around a bit instead of just sitting in a seat in a car or airplane. We also went to St. Louis on the trip, where I threw a tantrum because I didn't want to go to an art museum. But I did enjoying seeing the gateway arch and taking a 3 hour ride on a Mississippi riverboat called "The Presidential."

Another time we went to Maine for Thanksgiving and I got into a fight with my cousin, a seventh day adventist, about which day the Sabbath should be observed on. We also took shorter trips, such as to Mesa Verde in Colorado or Moab, Utah, or Blanding to visit my cousins. We went to Bryce National Park several times and Yellowstone once. We went camping at Craters of the Moon in Idaho when I was 18, and I felt pretty cool on that trip because we took my truck and I got to drive.

When I was about 7 I spent 3 weeks in St. George visiting my cousins and had quite an adventure. I got strep, walked across a hot road in bare feet on what was at the time a record-breaking temperature for the state of Utah (117 degrees), took a mud bath, hiked to the top of a hill, got head lice, and was attacked by a cactus. That last one was one of the best lessons in physics I have ever learned. I was in the front yard with my cousins and my oldest cousin Nathan challenged me to a foot race. He said to me, pointing across the yard, "the first one to touch the flower on that cactus wins." Never one to refuse a challenge, I gave it everything I had and was the first one to touch the flower. It would have been a glorious moment if my momentum hadn't then carried me into the cactus itself, resulting in several hours of painful cactus needle extraction from just about every part of my body. But it was, without question, a memorable moment in my life :)