Marvls Happenings

We went to the Genola Rodeo this last weekend.  If you don’t know where Genola is it is West of Santaquin.  If you don’t know where Santaquin is then get a map.

One of the events in the rodeo was to release farm animals and let the children attempt to capture them.  If the child captures the animal, they get to keep it.  Our three city kids went out with their country cousins to go capture some animals.  I honestly didn’t think they would actually capture anything, but at the same time I had a bad feelings.

Well, within minutes, Emily came walking up to the fence holding a chicken.  We were totally shocked.  We told her to go put it down so that someone else can capture it.  She walked away and we thought we were safe.  All of a sudden, we saw Blake walking towards us with a chicken, next we saw Abby walking towards us with a chicken.  Finally Emily came walking towards us with the same chicken as well.  She decided not to put the chicken down.

Here we were a city family with three chickens.

Blake with Rocky

Abby with Shadow

Emily with ZeeZee

Well, we left Genola the next day without three chickens.  We left them with Jolyn’s brother.  They said that they would find a good home for the three chickens.  Their neighbors all have chickens.  My mother-in-law still starts laughing uncontrollably when you start talking about the night.  The pictures come from her.

I haven’t posted for a while. I have had some server problems and had to change Internet providers.  My new provider is really good and I finally have everything back up and running again.

We had a wonderful weekend out in Vernal.  We helped Jolyn’s mom build two large flower beds in front of her house with stones that went three high.  We brought in a bunch of dirt and put in some new window wells.  We raised the dirt about a foot in these flower beds.  It looks nice and when she gets some plants in there it will really change how her house looks.

We then went out and pruned some old apple trees.  We think these trees are around 75 years old.  We burned the green branches and had to get the fire pretty hot to do it.  Put it this way, I was standing four feet away from the fire and a puff of smoke hit my face and singed my eyebrows and eyelashes.  That is a hot fire.

The next day, a friend of ours called and asked if we could help brand his cows.  So we drove a while out of town from Vernal and helped him brand 90 calves.  We parked our van in a coral where we release the mother cows while we brand the calves.  I don’t know why, but the cows sit there and lick our white van.  Do they think it is ice cream?  I had to stop and wash the van on our way back into town.

Here are a few pictures of the branding.

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Ah my little artist is sure getting better each day.  At Emily’s school they had an artist in residence come and teach them some new techniques.  Her name is Annette Orrock.  Below are Emily’s creations.

(My favorite is Kaysville Ponds, what is yours?)

Arches at Sunset	East Beach	Kaysville Ponds
Mountain Storm	Underwater Adventure	Waterfall

I had to go to Vegas for a four day Raymond James annual convention, we stayed at the Palazzo, which is a 5 star hotel.  It was really nice and probably one of the nicest hotels I have stayed in over the years.  Yet it is still Vegas and what happens in vegas, vegas can have.

If you have a word of wisdom or gambling addiction, you do not want to go on one of these conventions.  Investment and Annuity companies wine and dine us, literately.  Once or twice a day, we had bar tenders at our command and could order anything under the sun.  This is when I get my feel for Orange Juice and vitamin C.  A good bar will keep the best Orange Juice.

One wholesaler from DWS did take us to a really nice steak house and to the Cirque Du Soleil, which is an interesting show.  This steak house had baked potato bread, which was heavenly.

After being pampered, wined and dined for four days, I came home late Friday night and had to get up early the next morning to go do service at the Layton Bishop Warehouse.  I have never done this before and it was a neat experience.  It was so humbling to be in Vegas and then serving people.  I’ll take the serving any day.  I met some of the neatest people as well.

If you haven’t had a chance to work in the Bishop’s Warehouse, I highly recommend it.

We built our first snow family in our home.  The kids were really creative because they added a snow dog and a dead snow gerbil.  Yes, Gerald the gerbil died a few months back, he has now been immortalized in snow at least until it melts.

Which are the people and which are the snowmen?

Em created a snow dog to represent tucker.

The snow gerbil has a halo and wings, because "he is dead" as Abby puts it.

Last night Abby wanted to sleep somewhere other than her bed. I gave her a list of options, and one of them was in the bath tub. It was more of a joke than serious. I told her to figure it out and left her to decide on her own. When Marv and I came back up to check on her last night, we found her in the tub fast asleep. I laugh even now as I think about it.

You know this is going to show up in her wedding video in the future.

The next morning we asked her how comfortable she was and she said it was very comfortable.  No she has not seen “I am Legend” where Will Smith’s character slept in the tub because he was afraid of the zombies outside.

Jolyn gave us a little scare this week.  She went in for her check up with the dermatologist who found cancer on her face last year.  He removed three more moles from her.  As you know Jolyn isn’t covered in moles like Larry the Cable Guy’s sister, but she has had to watch herself closely.  

Two of the moles came back fine, but the third was in her hair line just above her right ear were the cancerous mole was previously removed.  It came back that it wasn’t basal cell carcinoma like last time, but it also wasn’t normal and the doctor was concerned and wanted to send it off for further tests to see if it was melanoma.  

Well, that is all one wants to hear and with what we have been going through with my mom it brought our emotions very close to the surface. 

However on Thursday we received word from the pathologist that the mole cells were normal, just agitated from being brushed since they were in the hair.  Whooo!  Boy was that good news.  Tough week, but it ended well.

I have traveled to Mt. Rushmore more times than I can count.  You probably have seen this passed around, but I have always wondered what it looked like on the other side.

Jolyn and I recently celebrated our 12th year anniversary.  Jolyn gave me a card that statistically laid out a few things that has happened in our lives since we have been married. I thought it was a great idea and wanted to expand it even further.

We have gone through much together over these last 12 years.

• We brought 3 beautiful children into our family, 2 spending time in the NICU.
• Moved 6 times.
• Purchased 2 homes, 4 vehicles, 3 dogs and 1 horse.
• Jolyn has graduated from the university and has now gone back for more.
• Marv has pursued 3 different professions.
• Marv has received 5 different professional licenses.
• We have dealt with cancer once, beat it. Now we are watching someone close go through a worse form of cancer.
• We have had 6 bone breaks, one being a major femur bone.
• We have had 7 different surgeries.
• We have lost one father (Grandfather).
• We have traveled to 13 different states.

These are only a few of the things we chosen to do. Life has thrown us other obstacles of illness, pain and sorrow, but overall we have developed only 4 laugh lines and 2 frown lines on our faces. So I think these 12 years have been good years!
The great thing about this list is that each one of you could make a similar list yourself.  It is not that we are special, but it is amazing when you list the things you have gone through it is kind of fun to see what has been done in a short amount of time.

For Christmas Marv did something very special for me. He commissioned an LDS artist to sketch this portrait of my dad. This was a complete surprise. I had no idea he was going to do this. The artist is Jean Keaton. She happens to be our neighbor just living across the street. Right after we moved in, Marv started talking to Jean about sketching this picture. Jean does many of these portraits. She told Marv that it probably would be a year wait for her to finish, just because there is that long of a waiting list. That was in July, she was able to finish this portrait on Friday, December 19th, the day before we went to Vernal to celebrate Christmas.

Marv collected different pictures of my dad and gave them to Jean. During one of the conversations he had with Jean, Jean asked if there was just the three kids in my family. Marv said no, that I had a brother who passed away just after he was born. So in the picture she sketched my dad holding my brother Josh. If Josh were alive today, he would be 37 years old, Marv’s age. When Marv told Jean that she asked if she should put a baby in the picture as well. And he said yes! There was some divine guidance.

Marv gave this picture to me on December 20th when we were in Vernal. The way he did it was just perfect. After we opened presents with my family, Jessi, my sister said she had a video to show us that she put together. The video was titled “Growing up as a Hacking”. It was pictures of my family and all of us growing up on the ranch. It was amazing! Marv had no idea that Jessi was going to do this. And it set the stage for his gift. After the video was finished, Marv said he had a special gift to give. He then showed us the portrait and went on to explain the process he went through to have it put together. We were all amazed! And yes, we were all crying our eyes out! It was so neat! Marv had typed up his thoughts of my dad and experiences he has had. It was beautiful!

This was such a special Christmas gift. I absolutely love the portrait. Jean did an amazing job at portraying my dad. It looks so much like him. I love to look at this picture and know that my dad is now happy and he is with my brother. I am so thankful that Marv did this for me and my family. My mom said to me later, “Marv sure made our Christmas.” I completely agree with her. This gift was given at just the right time. Not two days before, I was commenting to Marv about how I wish we did more for my dad at Christmas and even remembered my brother more. And then he did this. Amazing! It is amazing how things work out!