The old baseball adage, “three strikes and your out”.  In our case, it was “three strikes and you move.”  We put an offer on a home and they accepted, it was the third offer this year on three different homes.  It is a buyer’s market out there and it will remain one for a while because of the difficulty to get a loan, but prices are still too inflated.  So we didn’t settle on just any home, it had to be one worth owning.  

Our first home we put an offer on, no one had placed any offers for 180 days, a moving company had taken over the home and the day we put our offer in, two other offers came in at the same time and beat us out.  That was a hard blow.  Marv didn’t want to put an offer on that home until he passed his Series 7 and the day after he did, we submitted our offer.  

The second home we found, which had some wonderful features, it was only on the market for a couple of days when we found it.  We put an offer on it the same day we walked through, but was late by one hour.  So we took a second position on the home and it eventually expired and we were out.  A second position means that if the first offer has any problems, we switch places and we become the first offer and they the second offer.  It is a good way to take over a home if you really want it when someone else beat you to it.  

After the second home strike out, we licked our wounds and started looking around again.  After months of prayers, asking what we needed to learn from the situation and how we can understand more Father’s time lines over ours, we found it.  The home we actually bought, we saw after it was on the market for a couple of days.  It was exactly in the neighborhood we wanted, but we didn’t get real excited about the home in general.  It was priced higher than the market could bare for its square foot, so we knew it wasn’t going anywhere.  The second home we put an offer on was priced at $76 a square foot and the average home in our area goes for around $100 a square foot.

We looked at a lot more homes and kept coming back to the one we eventually bought.  We went and saw it a second time and then did a lot of praying to see if it was the right one.  It was frustrating because we weren’t really getting an answer that it was or wasn’t the right home for us.  It made us think about that general conference talk on prayer and how sometimes you get a yes or no answer and then sometimes you get nothing because the Lord wants you to make the decision.  

At first, it felt that he wanted us to make our own decisions, which was hard for us, because buying a home is so expensive and we didn’t want to make a mistake.  We wanted the Lord to tell us what he wanted us to do before we would really make a decision ourselves.  We would go where ever he wanted us to go.  Yet a lot of times that is not how the Lord works.  He wants us to think it out, make a decision and then go to him to see if our decision is correct.    

What finally pushed us over to make a decision was to look at the home as to what we could do to it and not at how it currently looks.  Once we did that we were able to see some real value and an exciting home.  Once we had made a decision to buy this home, the Lord gave us an answer that it was the correct home.  

We put in an offer, they countered very close to our asking price and it ended up being a very good win/win situation.  We will close around the end of the month of June and then we probably have two weeks of upgrades to do on the home.  The present owners have a cat and two dogs, and Marv with his sniffer could detect cat urine in a few of the rooms, which he absolutely hates.  So there will be a lot of carpet removal occurring.  

We know it has been a while since we posted.  It just has been a very hard few months and we haven’t been in the mode to write, if you know what we mean.

Abby was baptized on Saturday, March 29th.  It was a beautiful baptism.  Abby has been so excited to be baptized from months now.  She has talked about and looked forward to this moment in her life.  She has such a sweet, little testimony.  She has chosen to be baptized because she really loves her Heavenly Father and wants to be obedient and do the things that are right.  The love of a child is amazing.  We can feel Abby’s love for her Heavenly Father.  She has such simple faith.  Looking at Abby, you can see why we are encouraged to be like little children.  Such faith, love, obedience, and happiness is what we all should work towards.

Saturday was a very wonderful day and everything really came together.  From our ward Abby was the only one being baptized, so we didn’t have to share the momment.    Abby was in charge of the program and she chose her parents to give the talks.  I guess she hasn’t grown tired of hearing us talk to her.  We’ll see if she still feels that way in 10 years!   We had most of the Hacking side of the family there and most of the Ellis side of the family as well.  Abby also had her primary teacher there and a few of the neighbor friends.  It was adorable to see Abby in her baptism jumpsuit sitting on the front row.  And then when she walked back in the room in her baptism dress with wet hair, she hasn’t looked so happy!  Although, when she was being confirmed she looked scared to death.  She does not like being the center of attention.  She is our shy child!

Abby’s response to get baptized was really precious.  We had asked her to wait a little bit to be baptized so that we could be in a new home and have everyone come over to it instead of having to go to a church or some place else.  Her response was precious.  She said, “No, I want to have the Holy Ghost.”  You can’t argue with that.  So we went ahead as scheduled. 

We are so happy that Abby was baptized.  She is such a good example to us everyday.  We hope you enjoy looking at the precious pictures of Abby’s baptism.   

[Show as slideshow]

Abby received her own scriptures

Abby looking in her scripture bag

Abby playing with cousins and eating

Abby primary teacher's gift

Another table for signing on those who came

Everyone who came to the luncheon

Abby being cute

Daddy and Abby posing before her baptism

Family picture posing before her baptism

As a family, we have had a lot happen.

On Monday, Marv took his Series 7 exam and passed.  This is a huge exam.  It is 6 hours long.  They break it up into two parts, part 1 you answer 130 questions and then take an hour break to come back and answer another 130 questions for a grand total of 260 questions.  Nationally, only 66% pass and the national average score is 73%.  Marv received a 76%.  He wanted his score a little higher, but he is just glad it is over.

Marv has already started studying for his next Series exam, which is the Series 66.  This exam gives him the ability to be an Investment Advisor Representative.  In essence, he can charge fees.  The Series 66 exam is only 2 and half hours long and a 105 questions.  This exam will be a lot easier to pass, because it repeats his Series 63 exam that he took a few years ago and received an 80% on, so there is a lot of redundancy he is noticing in his studies.

The bigger news is Jolyn is now cancer free.  Yesterday she had her surgery done to remove the cancer on her face.  She is doing well, but in slight pain and discomfort.  The worst part is she could only sleep on one side during the night, which is usually the side she sleeps on, but she wanted to roll over so bad just because she knew she couldn’t.  You know that feeling.  Your not hungry until you start fasting. 

The procedure went real well.  She went in and they removed about 8 mm of tissue, which is about the size of Marv’s index finger.   They then tested all the removed tissue and came back that they removed all the cancer on the first try.  They then removed a little more tissue to make the opening a football shape to stitch up, where before it was a round circle.   They then did a series of deep stitches and then a series of outer stitches.  In all the cut is almost an inch long on the right side of her cheek bone by the hair line.

Marv is kicking himself for not bringing the camera and at least taking a picture.   She sat in the operating chair for more than a half an hour with the open wound visible, while Marv was studying.  They cauterized the opening to minimize bleeding.  Marv commented that it was like branding calves, between the smell and smoke rising as the doctor worked on her.  For those who have done that before, there is an image.

For my daughters birthday part we took all her friends to go see “Horton Hears a Who”.  It was a very good movie.  I highly recommend taking your whole family to go and see it.  Hollywood has butchered Dr. Seuss with “Cat in the Hat” and “The Grinch”.  They did a very good job at nailing the feel, story and purpose of Dr. Suess’ story with “Horton Hears a Who”.

As we were driving home, my daughter Emily asked me why the Kangaroo in the movie was so mean to Horton.  In the movie, she kept saying, “If you can’t see it, can’t hear it, then it doesn’t exist.”  She went out of her way to stop Horton, because he became a threat to her way of life.  I explained to Emily that many people have the same belief in our society.  If they can’t see it or hear it, then it doesn’t exist.  She didn’t understand what I was talking about.  So I explained to her that people say that about God.  Since they can’t see him or hear him, he doesn’t exist. 

Right after I said that my son said, “they can’t hear Jesus because he has a quiet voice.”  Kids will say the neatest things.  

We had our home teacher come today and it reminded me of a funny incident that occurred the last time he was here.  We were all on the couch as a family just talking.  Mark Zachreson our home teacher was telling us some story about hunting or something about work.  We had been talking for about 10 to 15 minutes and Jolyn and I were deep in conversation with him.  When out of the blue our Blake piped up and said in an irritated voice, “Can we have the lesson now?”  We just all burst out laughing.  Luckily there was no embarrassment, just pure laughter.  

Today when Mark came we brought up that event from last month.  Blake was there drawing some letters on a letter practice sheet.  He kept drawing as we talked without looking up, but a smile crept across his face as we talked about it.  He didn’t say anything today, though I was hoping because my lunch was getting cold in the kitchen.  

Yesterday I received a phone call from Jolyn, informing me that a test result had come back that she had cancer.  Luckily for us it is the nicest form of cancer that one can get, “Basil Cell Carcinoma”.  There was a mole on her upper right cheek (her face cheek) that had looked a little different and she had that feeling to get it looked at.  So she went in and they removed it and biopsied the mole and it came back cancerous.  The doctor said it was probably due to the over exposure she had as a child to the sun.  She grew up on a cattle ranch where there were many days of horse back riding pushing herds from one area to another in the direct sun.

There are two types of cancer cells, both are deadly if not treated.  Carcinoma stays isolated to the infected area.  You can remove the diseased tissue and remove the cancer, no further treatments are required.  Melanoma is the kind you don’t want.  It can spread to different organs and requires chemotherapy and radiation to treat.

The doctor says there are two types of methods for removal.  One is the usual method of removing a block of skin tissue around the mole, down to the muscle and then stitching it up.  This method has a 95% survival ratio.   The second method is similar, except they go in and remove a smaller portion of tissue surface area, while the wound is still open, you sit back and read a book for an hour.  They take the removed tissue and test all the surface areas to ensure they have removed all the cancer.  If they missed an area, they go back and remove more skin as needed.  Once they are sure they have it all, they stitch up the wound.  This procedure has a 98% of survival.  Both procedures are done through a plastic surgeon.

In either case, I don’t like that there is a 2% or a 5% chance that they can miss the cancer.  In either case both of us are confident that everything will go well.  It has been very interesting the various thoughts that have run through both of our minds, playing out various scenarios.  All of a sudden neither of us feel so invincible.

As a family we decided to go down to President Hinckley’s viewing.  I was able to go and see President Kimball’s viewing when he passed away.  I wanted my children to go to the viewing of their first prophet.

We arrived today at 3:00 pm in downtown Salt Lake City.  They were having us enter on the east side of the conference center.  There were four lines and by the time we had gotten there the four lines were about 200 feet long.  Once through the doors, we had to go through some medal detectors, then wind our way into the conference center.  They placed us in a section and there we sat and waited for 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Our time came to see him.  Having the enormous conference center full of people waiting can cause a lot of noise.  They had Hinckley’s  95th birthday party playing the whole time.  Though it was noisy, once you made it to the third floor and entered the hall of the prophets, the noise immediately went away and total reverence came over you.  The spirit was so strong.  He was surrounded by four body guards and two lines walking past him on the right and left.  His casket was open and you could look unto him.  He looked younger and peaceful.

It took us 3 hours and 5 minutes to see President Hinckley for less then 30 seconds.   It was worth it.

The incredible thing was when we left the conference center, we exited on the West side.  The line was now extended from the East side, all along the South side, all along the West side and ended somewhere on the North side.  Those outside had at least a four to five hour wait to see him for a few seconds.  It was now after 6:15 pm and my heart went out to them.

The Internet makes the world small

This morning my sister-in-law sent me an e-mail that was a forward, of a forward, of a forward.  It was a poem written about President Hinckley.  The coolest thing was at the end of the poem, I recognized the name of the author.  It was written by one of my clients in North Carolina.  I e-mailed her and she confirmed the poem was hers.  She said that she wrote the poem the night she heard of Hinckley’s death and sent it only to her family.  From there they sent it out to whom they knew and on and on until it reached me.  It amazed me how the Internet can make the world so small. 

Here is her poem.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

 Prophetic Passing

One of my fraternity brothers sent this clip to me.  As I watched it, I thought Glen Beck on CNN expressed beautifully his feelings towards President Hinckley on national TV.  I express the same sentiments that Glen has as well.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.    

One family tradition that we started a few years back is at the first of the year and during Family Home Evening everyone creates goals that they want to accomplish that year.  We have a short lesson on the importance of having goals and then we each take a piece of paper out and draw what our goals are for the year.  Even our youngest who has been under the age of 5 has drawn his goals. Weeks before we do this our children begin to ask when we are going to do this.

This year, we reviewed previous year goals to see how we have been doing. We keep all the goals in a special red binder that sits by the TV so that the kids can pull them out at any time.  More than once when we have seen our children struggling we have pulled out their goals to see what their desires are to find a solution for them.  It is even more special when we watch them read their own goals.

My middle daughter last year put a goal down that she wanted to learn Karate. We are not sure where that inspiration came from, but it truly was a desire.  After talking to a Karate teacher (master) we determined that it wasn’t the best thing right now for her to do. Yet this was her goal, not ours.  In our pursuit for alternative solutions, we stumbled across tumbling, which she has loved.  She hasn’t asked about karate since. If we hadn’t done the goals, we would never of discovered an extra curricular activity that was unique for her.

I know years from now our children will love these goals. They will be able to look back at those periods in their life and see what was important to them.  I think they will be amazed at their unlimited capability. They will see that they can accomplish anything they set their minds too. Now that is a powerful lesson for your children to learn.

Two of my sisters are living out of state and could not be there when Dad & Mom received their Christmas gift last night.  Since they contributed to the gift along with those present, I wanted them to experience the moment as we did.  The gift was two BYU Season Tickets for 2008-2009 season.  I know a video isn’t as good as being here, but you can see their excitement.  This is also for Jack, who we want to especially thank for making the “Y”.  We know this was a huge sacrifice on your part, since you are a true “U” fan.   Thank you!

The video  also talked about some fake BYU Season tickets that were attached to the paper.  

Below is a copy of the note Melissa wrote and a sample of what the BYU tickets looked like. 

“Put this display of cougar pride in your window for all to see
then hit the road for a little ride for live football in Happy Valley!

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2008 BYU Football

Season Tickets
are coming for you to enjoy!

The wording “Fake Tickets!  Not for use!” was put on this image since I was placing it on the Internet, the tickets were cut individually.