Ella

I was working at the Salt Palace Convention Center in down town Salt Lake City, Utah, the 2002 Winter Olympics were set to start in just a few weeks and I was going to be working with the Press from all over the world. We had set up several rooms that would be used for major and minor press conferences along with an office area for Olympic personnel and offices for print media and studios for broadcast media. I had also set up a bull pen area where any reporter could sit and watch live feeds from any event happening at that time with four screens set up in the center of the room with tables fanning out around this center piece. NBC who had the rights to cover the Olympics in the US set up their sound stage and editing rooms right on the trade show floor, complete with fake fireplace and rustic furniture. Maggie was pregnant and the due date was February 2nd, 2002, the day the Olympics were to begin. We were hoping that she would make it to her due date as that would have been 02/02/02. While I was working long hours getting things ready for the Olympics Maggie was at home chasing Patrick, our two year old, around the house while trying not to over due it while being pregnant and all. On January 18th, 2002 Maggie woke up just before six in the morning and said that she thought she might be in labor. I asked how far apart were the contractions and she said about fifteen minutes. I looked at her to determine her pain level and she did not seem to be in any kind of pain. She got up and headed downstairs. I got up and headed to the shower. She did not seem to be in any rush so I thought that it might just be Braxton Hicks contractions. Those are contractions that are getting a mothers body ready to deliver but to a guy it just seems like the body is warming up, nothing to get too excited about. While I showered, Maggie went down stairs and got Patrick some breakfast. I came down a short while latter to find Patrick, Mom and my brother-in-law, Shawn, who had been staying with us while he was working at a job just down the street from our house, all eating cereal. Maggie then told Shawn that she thought she was in labor and asked if he could call in late while we got our parents up from Ephraim or Spring City to watch him. He agreed. I sat down and had some cereal while Maggie gathered up the things we needed to take with us to the hospital. She put it all in the car and I then got in the car and we started our journey to the hospital. Now I do not recommend doing what I had done. From my observation of the situation Maggie was not in any physical pain. She did not seem to be in a hurry so I did not show any care. It was a normal morning from everything I saw. Latter I have been brought to the understanding that I was as dense as a rock. I showered, ate, watched and then got in the car as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. I will never hear the end of it. We lived in Kearns, Utah up on the hill close to Kearns High School and the Speed Skating Oval that was to be used during the Olympics. We were about thirty minutes from down town Salt Lake and the LDS Hospital where we were headed was just a few blocks east of down town. We had left the house just before seven in the morning so traffic was not very bad. It had just started snowing when we left the house. Maggie and I had been driving for about fifteen minutes when Maggie looked at me and said that she thought the contractions had stopped. Since we were already headed to the hospital we agreed to continue just to make sure everything was okay. The snow was coming down a little harder and by the time we reached the hospital there was already two inches on the ground. We parked and walked into the hospital. I asked the reception where the birthing center was located and she told us how to get there. We walked to the elevators and went up and then walked down the hall to the maternity ward. We arrived at another desk and Maggie explained that she thought she might be in labor. The nurse asked a few questions about the contractions and the pain level and who her doctor was then with some skepticism, mentioning the Braxton Hicks contractions, escorted Maggie and I to one of the rooms. Maggie was not in any pain and there were no visible signs of discomfort and the contractions had lessened substantially at least that is what I remember Maggie saying to the nurse. The nurse gave Maggie the hospital gown and had her change and then said that she would check to see how far dilated she was. Maggie changed and then got on the bed and the nurse came over and checked. The nurse went pale, said Maggie was dilated to an eight, and quickly left the room. In terms of what that dilation meant in my humble non doctor understanding is that a one is nothing a five is labor will happen some time soon and a ten means that baby is coming out. An eight then means that we should hold on because the baby will be there any moment. The nurse came back moments later and said that our doctor had been contacted and was on her way from the University of Utah Medical Center which was just a few miles away but with the snow coming down she was worried that our doctor would not make it in time and asked if we would mind the doctor currently on shift to deliver if she did not make it in time. We thought that would be fine and the nurse left. When Patrick was born labor lasted a long time, we had spent hours watching TV and reading before the action happened so I naturally assumed that this was going to be the same case. I sat down opposite Maggie and started to read the newspaper figuring that when the doctor arrived I would be ready to do my part. The nurse came in one more time to check and reassure us that our doctor would be there in just a few minutes. Again for all the care and needs that Maggie may have had at the time I was not paying attention and I am still trying to make up for it and will forever. Our doctor arrived and came in to check on Maggie. The doctors cheeks were still red from the cold when she looked underneath the blankets. I watched when the doctor said something that startled me, "Push!" I jumped up to do my little part and Maggie pushed. With just one long push Ella was born. All the doctor had to do was arrive, say push, and catch the baby. I cut the umbilical cord and the baby was cleaned off and handed to mom. Ella came out hungry. She wanted to eat right away. She ate and then the nurses took her away. The actual labor lasted two minutes tops. Once Maggie was cleaned up and Ella whisked away to be bathed and swaddled I sat down to marvel at how quickly it all happened. The nurses and doctors had left the room and Maggie needed the bathroom so she got up and went. The nurse came in while she was in the bathroom and proceeded to yell at me for allowing her to get up out of bed. When Maggie came out she calmly escorted Maggie back to the bed and sweetly told her that she should not get up for a few hours, all while glaring at me. Ella's birth was fast and furious and I am glad that when the contractions stopped halfway to the hospital we didn't turn around and go home. It snowed over eight inches that day.

Map

I have a map of the United States that is pinned to the wall in the hallway leading to the garage. This map is laminated and show all of the major interstates and highways connecting the cities together with the smaller cities and towns. The map shows major rivers, mountains, and lakes along with stars for capitals of states and large dots for big cities and smaller dots for smaller towns. There are some really small towns that are not listed on the map but they do exist. I have driven past many of them as we have taken road trips as a family. Some of these road trips have led to new places to live and even new jobs and opportunities. Some of these roads have led to relatives houses spread out across the country and some have led to interesting things to see or landmarks and history to learn and appreciate. We have drawn lines on all of the roads that we have driven. When we were living in Overland Park, Kansas a suburb of Kansas City, we would take short trips to St. Louis, Missouri. On one trip we decided to stay overnight and visit down town St. Louis. We started at City Museum. City Museum is a unique museum filled with recycled everything. Metal, rollers from conveyor belts, small planes, trains and many other industrial recycling. One can climb on all of it. With Patrick and Ella in tow we went with some of our friends from Kansas. I did not realize just how big a place like that could be. City Museum is in a very old four or five story red brick warehouse. When walking up to the entrance there is metal rings and walkways above and trains and metal animals below. There is so much to see and climb on. Once we payed the entrance fee we started our tour of the place. I decided to start my climb up the metal on the outside of the building to see the plane that was suspended some forty feet in the air. Patrick was young and afraid of heights but we coaxed him along. The challenge with the metal walkways was that although one is surrounded by plenty of metal the whole apparatus sways when being walked on and there isn't any wood to block ones view of the ground. Every step is a step of faith hoping that the metal ribs will withstand the weight of one more person. Once we got to the plane we could climb even higher and enter the building from a window and see all of the things inside. My favorite thing was an old bank safe that had been relocated to the museum. The safe door stood open and one could see that it was almost three feet thick. The safe door was made of brass with a very large locking mechanism of bolts around the middle of the door that went into corresponding holes built into the wall of the safe. The amazing thing about such a heavy door was that Patrick a small five year old boy, could push the door open and shut with ease. Who knew that such hinges existed easy to open a door that weighed several tons and not even a squeak. One of the benefits of City Museum is that everything presented is not blocked off by glass or rope, there are no signs that say access denied or restricted, there is only an atmosphere of please touch, play, run, move, and don't worry. One simple thing that was on the third floor was an old piano. It was a little out of tune but anyone could play it. It didn't matter if you were good at it or not and the plunking and pounding could be heard echoing off of the walls in almost every part of the museum. In the back of the museum there were some caves built into the building. In these caves were metal and cement built up three stories tall. The kids could get in and climb all the way up without fear of falling as it was all enclosed with metal rods between two and three inches apart and the path leading up only two or three feet in diameter. All of these attractions and more to play on or touch or run to and then the culmination of the entire museum are two slides made entirely of conveyor belt rollers. The slides are two and three stories tall and two or three feet wide. Sit down and away you go. In the whole museum this is the only place where I saw a warning sign. It simply said to keep hands and hair up or something like that. There is always a slight risk of pinching fingers or caught hair and they wanted to make sure you were aware, but I think that made it all the more fun as I sat with Patrick in front of me and Maggie and Ella behind ready to slide down from the third floor. What a thrill. There are no bars or side rails to guide just a straight shot three stories down. I held on to Patrick and away we went, down the slide, once at the bottom with me a little out of breath from the trepidation and a little fear that I had, Patrick just said, "Let's do it again." And so we did.

Pools

I love to swim. I learned how to swim at my dad's mom's house. Grandma had a nice pool in her back yard and whenever we visited we wanted to swim. Mom would remind us to bring our swimming trunks and a towel. We always remembered the swim trunks but usually we forgot the towel. Grandma had a green fiberglass covering over the patio next to the deep end of the pool. This had two built in tables both were made of cement benches and cement table top with a rough pebble finish, one was long and could seat ten or sometimes more depending on the size of the cousin sitting at the table, the other was a perfect square with four cement stools stationed at each side. The smaller table was our favorite table to sit at because we were not being elbowed or squished by everyone at the long table. There was also a built in grill that was used to cook hot dogs and hamburgers. Grandma had a few pool chairs that folded up and other loungers that could be laid out or folded up both at the feet and the backrest. These chairs were the favorite because we could fold the feet rest and the back rest up so that it looked like a square missing the top. The older girls would lay out on these chairs to get a tan. The younger cousins would pester these girls with water or towel snapping just for sport. The pool had an electric cover with rollers that would roll along a course set by metal tracks that went down the side of the pool. If there were no adults around we would roll the cover over the top of people still in the pool. I don't think we ever thought about possible consequences of our actions and luckily no one ever got hurt. One day while we were out swimming in Grandma's pool I went to get out at the side of the pool where the metal runner was for the wheels of the pool cover. I put both hands down on the metal and all of a sudden I was stuck to the rail. My body was shaking and it felt like a million tiny pricks of electricity were terrorizing my body. The rail was like a magnet and I was stuck. I couldn't yell or talk and my body was convulsing. I didn't know what to do. With all the strength I could muster I pushed away from the wall with my legs and got free from the electrical trap. I quickly got out of the pool and ran to my dad for help. My body was not hurt and there was no visible injury or lasting pain from my encounter but dad got my uncle Clifton and they quickly checked the motor and the wires leading to the motor. Clifton was more skeptical so he went and touched the metal rail that I was claiming had me stuck. When he touched it he was shocked and quickly removed his hand and yelled at everyone in the pool to get out while they figured out what had caused the problem. They soon figured it out. Some wire had pulled away from its insulation and was touching that particular rail. Dad and Clifton fixed the problem and I and the cousins went right back to swimming. When the family moved from Lehi, Utah to Duchesne, Utah the city had a pool that was open in the summer and mom quickly signed us all up for lessons. We went every morning to our lessons. At the time it was my older sister Chelle, me, then My younger brother Sam and my younger younger brother Matthew. Matthew was too young for lessons but Chelle, Sam and I would walk the two blocks to the lessons with mom carrying or walking slowly with Matthew in tow. She would watch us as we learned and talk with the other mothers that were there. In the afternoons we could go back to the pool and play. We went to that pool so often that all of our dirty blond hair turned green from the chlorine. The pool in Duchesne was fenced in and had an entrance and check in area at the front with a teenager manning the entrance. One had to present their pass or pay a dollar to get in. Once the pass was presented girls went right and boys went left through a dark locker room where we put our sandals and towels. The locker rooms opened to the shallow end of the pool. The pool was shaped like a giant letter L with the long part of the letter having the shallow end and gradually getting deeper as it proceeded to the corner then the short end of the L was where the high and low diving boards were. The depth was twelve feet and as I got braver my goal was to jump from the high dive and touch the bottom. Mom was brave enough that most afternoons she would let Chelle, Sam and I go by ourselves. Matthew was usually taking an afternoon nap. Chelle was nine, I was seven and Sam was five. She told us a specific time when we had to be back home and off we went. There were teenage lifeguards and it was safe. We swam, jumped, played with each other and with our friends who were with us. We dared each other to jump off the high dive. I had no fear and would climb up and jump off without hesitation. I would watch the older kids doing flips, cannonballs, can openers and all sorts of other tricks. Some would go for the biggest splashes or the perfect dives. After watching them I decided I would try a flip from the high dive. I got up to the top and I jumped, tucked and spun. I went around once then a second time and I didn't realize the water would come quite so quickly. I opened up to start the entry process and landed smack on my tummy with my arms and legs wide. I slapped the water so hard that I sat on the surface for a second longer than should have been possible. The pain was excruciating and I slowly sunk into the water. I did not want to show my pain so I slowly swam to the side if the pool to climb the ladder and get out of the pool. As I rose from the water the lifeguard that was stationed next to that ladder looked at me and said, pleasantly, "Your belly is red." I slunk off to the shallow area of the pool never to return to the high dive that day. We moved from Duchesne, Utah to Ephraim, Utah and the local college had an indoor pool. We continued our lessons and got annual passes so that we could swim whenever we wanted. The biggest difference was that here when one checked in one had to use the pools swimsuits and towels. No outside swim suits allowed. All of the swim suits were blue, the school colors. The men's shorts were very short and the women's suits were all one piece. Some of the suits were so old that we would put them on and realize that they were see through and have to go back to the desk for a different suit. By this time Matthew was old enough to come with us. Amy, the newest entry into the family, was not old enough to come with us. We four, Chelle, Sam, Matthew and I would walk the half mile from our house through Snow College's campus and to the Activity Center where the pool was located. We could swim from one till four almost every afternoon. We always came away tired but we didn't care we just wanted to go back the next day. Years later and many different pools, Maggie and I were looking to buy a house in the Salt Lake Valley. We found one, not with a pool but a hot tub. We bought the house and started using the hot tub. Patrick was a baby and he loved the hot tub. We would put him in a baby suit that had a rubber tube around the middle similar to what fisherman use to get out into the rivers and lakes. He would get that on and we would sit while he swam around the hot tub. Patrick loved the water and when sister came along they both enjoyed playing in the hot tub. As I moved to another job in Las Vegas, Nevada I had a coworker who invited the family over for a fourth of July BBQ. He had a pool in the back yard and made sure all of us came prepared to swim. When we arrived our host gave us a quick tour of the house and then we went out the back door to the pool. Patrick saw the water and ran. He didn't slow down when he hit the water. Maggie and I watched and I was thinking to myself in my best chastising voice, "Oh, Patrick, you didn't have your swimming suit on yet." He was also only three and could not swim but I didn't think about that first. The hosts wife quickly jumped in the pool and pulled Patrick to safety while his parents just looked on not thinking about the danger Patrick had just found himself in. Patrick eventually learned how to swim and I am much more careful when I am around pools, especially when a three year old decides to jump in.

Snowboarding

I had never been skiing or snowboarding. I enjoyed playing in the snow but sledding was the fastest I had ever gone down a hill. I was fourteen and I had some money from working as a janitor at Snow College, the local community college in town. My friend Kyle Strate knew how to ski and he and his dad were planning to go up to Brighton, a ski resort in Big Cottonwood canyon about two hours north of Ephraim where I lived. Kyle invited me to come up with he and his dad. He was going night skiing which means that from four until ten the resort turns on a bunch of flood lights on select runs and it costs less to ski or snowboard. I asked my parents if I could go with them and they agreed. Now snowboarding was still a relatively new sport. My friend Kyle had never done it and since I had never been skiing I thought I might as well try this new thing that "everyone" was doing. So I went up with my friend and we got to the lodge bought our lift tickets and I went down to the rental office to get a snowboard and boots. The lift ticket is attached to the coat with a triangle like piece of metal hooked to a zipper or clip on the jacket. The lift ticket is a sticker that goes over the top of the metal and must be visible to the lift operators so they now that you have paid for the right to get on the mountain. I went to the rental area and got set up with boots and snowboard. The snowboards had a front fin shaped like a soft triangle that raised up gradually about three inches and the back of the board was completely flat. I got there and the rental guy asked if I rode straight or goofy. I had no idea what he meant. I stared at him blankly and he asked again only this time he said do I ride with my right foot forward or my left. I didn't know the answer to that either so I just said goofy and let him set up the board that way. Goofy is with the right foot forward. I learned the next time I went that I prefer straight with the left foot forward. Once I had my boots on and the board in hand I was ready to go. I stepped outside and watched other snowboarders to see what they did. My friend Kyle and his dad were already up the mountain and I told them I would catch up eventually. I saw that the snowboarders attached their front foot to the board and left their back foot out of the strap and then they would push and slide with the back foot to get over to the lifts so that's what I did. I strapped in and started to walk. Talk about the most awkward way to walk, I could barely keep my balance and the snowboard kept sliding underneath me and twisting my knee. I finally made it to the lift and watched again as snowboarders got on the lift. They do not strap the back foot in they sit down on the lift and dangle the snowboard at a very odd angle while the other foot just hovers. I was nervous. I had never been on a lift before. I had never been snowboarding before. I got to the top of the lift and watched as others got off. Skiers seemed to get off with ease with poles in hand and ski's clamped firmly in place they slid off with ease and grace. It soon was my turn to get off of the lift. I stood up with the board touching the snow and I promptly fell over. The lift operator had to stop the lift or me while I crawled away from the dismounting area. With me now out of the way it was time to put my back foot onto the snowboard. I strapped in and stood up. Once I had gained my balance I pointed the board towards where the other people were going and started to slide. At first I thought this was easy, just like skateboarding back home. What I did not realize was I was just on a small slope and the fun was soon to come. I followed other snowboarders and I saw several signs with different names of the runs, Whistling Beaver, Christmas Lodge, Tall Pine, or something very similar. The truth is I can not say that I read the names at the time I just saw the color labels. There was green, blue, black diamond and double black diamond with arrows pointing in the general direction of each run. I did not know what each color meant and since I was already pointed towards the double black diamond run I just kept going, no need to try and turn or anything. I was picking up speed. I was trying to watch other snowboarders to see how they steered but I couldn't tell how they got their snowboards to go so smoothly while I was just trying to stay standing. I had overheard one snowboarder talking to another about being careful not to catch an edge so I was at least aware of one issue I might have later. I liked speed. I always have liked to go fast but on this snowboard going down a trail labeled as a double black diamond I was terrified at how fast I was moving. I realize now that the first thing I should have learned was how to stop. I was starting to go so fast that I was passing other people on the run and then I hit the worst thing imaginable for a snowboarder, moguls. Now again I had never been skiing or snowboarding in my life and I did not know what any of these things were I just knew I hated moguls. Moguls are little hills of snow that skiers tend to enjoy. it gives a skier the sense of bouncing and it allows a skier to have fun bouncing over these mounds of snow. Snowboards don't do so well on bumps in the snow all together like that. I hit the first of many moguls and I went tumbling head over snowboard. I landed hard got back up and looked around more embarrassed that I had fallen so hard. I pointed downhill and tried again. Again the moguls made me get air born. I picked myself up half a dozen times before I got out of the moguls and I wasn't anywhere near the bottom. I continued down the hill picking up speed and trying to watch out for anyone around me. I was just starting to feel confident that I would not fall again when the run went into a single track trail through the trees. Now a quick side note. Skiers are traveling down hill while facing down hill. Skiers have poles that they can use to help them gain speed and provide balance. Snowboarders face sideways down the hill and do not have poles to help provide balance or gain speed. On the trail through the trees I was terrified. I was traveling at a very high rate of speed and there was a skier in front of me and behind me. I didn't want to wreck because if I did the skier behind me would wreck into me and if I couldn't slow down I was going to wreck into the skier in front of me. I was so worried about these two skiers that I forgot about the trees. I turned the snowboard slightly one direction and I "caught the edge" what I had overheard before. I went right into the trees. It took me a while to get out of the trees and although my body was uninjured my pride was severely bruised. I went down the rest of the way as slow as I could making sure not to catch my edge. I found the easiest way for me to stop if I got going too fast was to just turn facing the downhill of the mountain and sit down. I used this option a lot and my shirt soon stretched and froze over my backside. By the end of my first run my friend Kyle had gone down three times. He found me down at the bottom and we went back up the mountain. I followed him telling him of my adventures while leaving a few of the details out. I rode up with him and I fell again while dismounting. Once strapped in I told him which way I had gone that first run and he just started laughing. I didn't know why he was laughing. He explained that the colors and the diamonds meant the level of difficulty and that double black diamond is the hardest run on the mountain. Now with that new knowledge in mind I took the blue run next and it really was easier and less steep than what I had just done. I fell a lot more that night and soon had bruises on my bum from all of the stopping. I gave myself a small cut on my chin when I "caught the edge" again and I generally was wet and tired by the time we finished for the night. I tried again just a few weeks later this time with the left foot forward and the right foot back and I loved every minute thereafter. I love to snowboard and I eventually became very good at it. It took me years of practice. I am just glad that I didn't give up after my first run going down the double black diamond.

Breakfast

I love food and breakfast food is my favorite. It can be salty, sweet, chewy, drinkable, dippable, fast, slow, gloppy, runny, soft, crunchy and more. I can eat breakfast food for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even for a snack. I rarely miss eating breakfast. When I was growing up breakfast was a very hectic time. I don't think that Mom ever sat down during the forty five minutes between when we arrived in the kitchen to when it was time to start walking or catching the bus to school. Mornings at my house typically consisted of Mom knocking on our door between six thirty and seven telling us it was time to get up and then she would flip on the light. I would race to the shower and could be in and out in less than three minutes most days. I was never one to take long showers when I was younger. I had things to do and so it became a race. Jump in get the water just right then wash my hair with the shampoo, usually suave or whatever was on sale, rinse my head grab the bar of soap wash the rest of me then rinse and get out. No one ever really knew which towel was the one they had used the day before because they all were similar so it was grab a towel dry off and wrap it around the body and run back to my room to get dressed. We never took our cloths in the bathroom with us as the next person in line needed to use the shower and that would have meant more time in the bathroom. Back in the room I shared with my two younger brothers, Sam and Matthew, I would put on jeans and a t-shirt. I was very fashion forward at the time and I don't think I ever wore anything else besides jeans and a t-shirt. As I got older I had a collection on white t-shirts that I had either gotten from the 5k's and 10ks that I was running or I would pick up one from the DI or a local store. When I left home to serve a mission I had over thirty white t-shirts hanging in my closet. Dressed with shoes on, I ran downstairs to the kitchen. I would arrive and mom would give a glance and tell me to comb my hair. I would go to the small bathroom next to the dining room hoping to find one but usually I would yell and say, "Mom, I can't find a comb." She would yell back a possible alternative location to locate a brush or she would tell me that Chelle must have it. My older sister always seemed to have the things that I needed. Dad always had a little black comb in his back pocket and he would sometimes pull it out and let us use it or he would help my younger brothers and sisters comb their hair with his comb or a brush that they would bring to him. Once the hair was done I could sit down to eat. Since I was usually one of the first kids down at the table we would pray with dad and mom. The food blessed we could finally eat. When breakfast was cereal the bags and boxes would be on the table. Our family could go through a box of cereal every morning if it was what everyone chose to eat. Mom would place a stack of bowls and cups with a handful of spoons on the side the milk was made the night before using a powdered milk that we all really liked. For a year or two we bought fresh milk from a lady that lived on the other side of town and that was really good because even though mom would take most of the cream off the top there would still be a little left and that made the milk thick and tasty. We grabbed a bowl picked our cereal and filled the bowl. Dad would look up from the newspaper and if we poured too much he would tell us to put some back. On cereal days mom put a sugar bowl on the table and we would add a spoonful of sugar to our cereal. We would sometimes get clever and add the sugar before adding the milk and then with the milk dissolving the sugar it looked like we had not gotten any sugar so we got another spoonful on top. The bonus with that much sugar is that the milk doesn't quite dissolve all of the sugar so once the cereal was eaten we would slurp the milk out of the bowl and then use our spoon to get every last bit of sugar we could from the bottom of the bowl. One thing to note was that we got a morning newspaper every day. Dad would usually get it when he came down and the first thing he read were the comics. If he didn't get the paper and one of us got the paper we got the comics first. When dad was done with the comics all of us wanted to read them and there would be dibs or next yelled out while we were all trying to eat. Mom never got to sit down with us to eat breakfast. She was usually too busy getting our lunches ready or getting the little ones their food. Mom was the referee. She helped keep things in order while we asked her all kinds of things about where our backpacks were or upcoming projects we had or even that we needed a shoe box or some other odd thing for school that day. Mom handled it all very well and even the occasional spill was met with small irritation and a toss of a rag or towel to clean it up. If it was a pancake day dad was usually the one flipping the pancakes and piling them on a plate. On the table we would find peanut butter and jam, fresh and hot Maple syrup (mom always made her own maple syrup) and powdered sugar. Their would be a stack of plates and cups and a handful of forks and the process would proceed again. Prayer would be offered and we would fill our plates with the pancakes. We always wanted the freshest and hottest pancakes and sometimes dad would try to tease us by lifting up the stack of pancakes and putting the freshest ones on the bottom of the pile. The same process was done for french toast. If dad wanted eggs for breakfast he also usually made them. As we would wander in he would ask us how we wanted our eggs cooked. I liked easy over with a runny yoke but the whites nice and firm. Sam would switch a lot have scrambled more often. Chelle and Matthew had easy over like me. As we got older we would be allowed to cook our own eggs but they never turned out as well. The yolks would break when we turned them over and we would be sad. We ate them anyway. Two eggs was what we got and they were enjoyed quickly. One of my favorites was simple toast and hot chocolate. Mom would make the chocolate in a large pan on the stove. She mixed the sugar and cocoa and vanilla right in the pan with the water and the powdered milk. We would grab a mug and use a ladle to scoop out the chocolate. Sometimes we would be responsible for our own toast but most of the time mom was toasting the bread as she was making the lunches. We would sit at the table with our toast and chocolate and then dip the toast into the chocolate and drip and slurp the now soggy toast to our mouths. We could go through a loaf of bread just for the toast. With so many of us we had a limit of two pieces of toast per person but that was enough. We had chocolate drips in a trail from the cup to our mouths. We had drips on our chins and sometimes if we weren't careful we got drips on our cloths. We wiped it off as best we could and continued. Once breakfast was completed dad would gather everyone up, everyone was awake and showered and down stairs by then, we would kneel wherever we could around the piano and into the dining room and kitchen and dad would call on one of us to pray or he or mom would pray. Prayer time was the quietest that the morning ever was. We asked for safety and happiness. We asked for help at school and at home. We thanked Heavenly Father for our rest from the night before. We thanked Heavenly father for our bodies, our family and our home. Some were short prayers and some were longer prayers. Sometimes the neighbor kids would be at our house to walk with us to school and they would participate with us. Sometimes we would hear the bus coming while we prayed and quickly finish so that we could run to catch it. Once the prayer was done we ran off in our various directions. Walking to school, catching a bus, going to work, or staying home. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day.

Goldie Locks

I was pegged with many nicknames. When I went into sixth grade my PE coach, Coach Anderson, couldn't pronounce my last name so he called me "Grinder" instead. He did this on the very first day and it stuck. Everyone in the school called me "Grinder." Most of the students didn't know why I had gotten the nickname but they didn't care. They thought it was fun to use and most thought that they were teasing me. I was not easily teased. I was glad that coach had given me this nickname and I was proud of it. All through middle school I was known by others as either my first name, Scott, or by my nickname, Grinder. When I got into high school the name didn't stick as well. I had a wrestling coach who tried to use it on me but it never sounded the same. The funny thing is that a few years later when I was a senior and I had a sophomore and freshman brother the nickname stuck with them. In wrestling, the freshman would be called Grinder and I would be called Scott. I have a very loud and bombastic personality. I talked with everybody. There was never any popular kids or nerds that I didn't talk to or with or about and everyone seemed genuine. My junior year I was not being called Grinder because my brother had just come into the school as a freshman and the nickname was transferred to him. I became Scott or Mr. Grindstaff depending on who was speaking with me. Occasionally I would be called Hey You or What's your name or Buddy or Friend. One day while hanging out at a friends house we were all gathered around the small piano in her front room. We were singing, playing, and laughing when it was my turn to sit down I got on the bench next to the girl who was just finishing. She got up from the bench and I slid towards the middle and was readjusting the bench when the back right leg buckled and I went tumbling. The bench was broken and It was me sitting on it. I gained notoriety and fame overnight. Everyone laughed and called me Goldie Locks because she was the one that broke the little bears chair. I laughed with the rest of them. I offered to fix the bench but the dad of the girl said that he would do it. The saddest part was that all of my friends were there to witness my breaking of this bench. I took it all in stride as I always did and thought nothing of the bench again. Until of course the next time my friends and I were over at her house playing and singing around her piano. I could never sit on the bench again without getting teased. Now I thought that this would be the end of it. I broke the bench but it was falling apart anyway and anyone that sat down could have been the one to break the bench. I was at home eating dinner with my family. I sat at one end of the table closest to the telephone. The telephone was attached to the wall behind me and since most of the calls were for me or one of my two brothers I was tasked with answering it during dinner. The chair sat between three and four feet from the wall. Dinner was in progress when the phone range. I scooted my chair back and leaned to get the phone from the wall. I had the phone in my hand when the back of the chair, along with the back two legs decided they had had enough and wanted to take a break. The chair and I fell with a crash to the floor. The floor was tile with the lines of grout that separate the individual tiles. The chair legs had stuck themselves inside the grout line and I pushed back at the same time I reached for the telephone the balance was precarious but it happened so quickly that I landed on the floor with a loud bang kept the phone in my hand and said as calmly as possible, "Hello, Grindstaff residence." My family knew about my experience with the piano bench from weeks earlier and now that I had broken a chair in similar fashion I was done for. Goldie Locks was my new name and it stuck.

Tacos

My family has a tradition. Maggie says that my family has a lot of traditions. One such tradition is a simple slice of heaven found inside a folded hot and greasy corn tortilla, with a pillow of the lightest and fluffiest pink jello ever imagined. Every birthday in my family is celebrated in the same way, tradition. On our birthday mom would let us choose what we wanted for breakfast and most of us had school so we would bring cookies to share with our classmates. My mom's chocolate chip cookies were famous in my school and I learned this early on. I could go to school with two cookies for my desert and trade for almost anything I wanted from my friends lunches. Usually I had two cookies so I would trade one and eat the other. Some days I would get lucky and there would be three cookies for desert then I had more leverage, two cookies for a bigger item, or sometimes I just ate them both with my friends drooling with desire. So because the cookies were so well known I would make sure that Mom and I made some the night before so that I could share with all of the class. After school was pretty normal except that I could smell the tacos being prepared. Now tacos in my family are not like tacos from a Mexican Restaurant and they certainly are not like Taco Bell. Mom would mix two pounds of ground meat with shredded potatoes, spices, and vinegar. This was placed in the oven and baked. When dad got home he would set up the electric fryer and fill up the fryer with vegetable oil until the entire bottom was covered with to about half an inch. Once the oil was heated dad would take the corn tortillas and lay them into the hot vegetable oil. He then used two forks to hold it down waited about thirty seconds and then folded the shell and put the hot shell on a cookie sheet that was lined with paper towels to soak up the vegetable oil. Mom would then spoon out some of the cooked hamburger potato mixture into the taco, one of us older kids would add shredded cheese and then the process would continue until the entire cookie sheet was full, two across and about twenty down. Because my family was so large we usually made sixty tacos. While the tacos were being made and set on the cookie sheet the other brothers and sisters were assigned to wash and break up the lettuce, wash and cut the tomatoes, set the table, and put the hot sauce out. The kitchen was full of people. Everyone in their stations tended to sample their work just to make sure that it tasted alright. We could go through one head of lettuce, a pound of cheese, three or four tomatoes, and half a jar of moms homemade salsa/hot sauce. Now the fluffy jello had been made earlier in the day. To start mom would put a can of sweetened condensed milk in the fridge to get it cold. Once cold she would make jello on the stove just as the recipe says to make it but once it was cooked and all of the powdered jello was dissolved she would set it aside for just a minute while she took out the sweetened condensed milk and put it into the mixer. This was beaten until fluffy and the jello was then added and mixed. Usually she also added a small container full of whipped topping to the mix. Once the beaten sweetened condensed milk turned pink it would be put in the fridge and chilled before dinner. Thus the pillow of pink fluffy jello was ready to be consumed. With the Jello and the tacos on the table it was time to eat. Before the meal began we said a prayer. I think that I was most thankful for this meal over any other ever made. After the prayer dad would remind us that we could only have three tacos. They put a limit on the goodness because there were a lot of us to feed and they also knew that if we were allowed to keep eating we would eat until all of them were gone. Once I was at my dad's mom's house, grandma's, and she let us eat as many as we wanted. I think I ate seven or eight before my tummy almost burst and I had to stop. I am pretty sure that one of my uncles still holds the record for the most tacos eaten at one time and that was fifteen or sixteen. My plate had three tacos piled high with the lettuce, tomatoes, and hot sauce and pink fluffy jello on the side. Pink fluffy jello melted in my mouth. There was never a limit on how much of the pink fluffy jello we could have but we had to move fast because once it was gone it was gone. With the tacos we would occasionally start with one on our plate and try to just do one at a time so that we could sneak a forth one but when caught we would claim we had miscounted and since it was already on our plate beg forgiveness and eat it anyway. The younger siblings always complained when we got one more than they did even if they could only eat two. We had this meal for every birthday. I looked forward to this tradition every time a birthday came up. Tradition!