Marvls Happenings

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.    

Many of you do not get the opportunity to go down to Temple Square in Salt Lake City and see the Christmas Lights.  Our family went down on Monday and I took some pictures to share with you.  Hopefully they will bring back some memories.  [Gallery not found]  

Last night Ben and Melissa Ellis became parents at 9:12 p.m. “Henry” as the nickname will probably forever stand was born on December 14th, 2007. He weighed 6 lb. 13 oz and was 19 inches long. He came very healthy and had a good set of lungs as we sat in the hallway listening to him scream. I do not want to steal the thunder of Ben and Melissa talking about the experience on their own blog, but I will leave you with a few pictures that I took last night so that you can see what he looks like.

	Ben talking to his sister Clyda about the birth. He just kept walking around in circles telling her all that had happened. He had his other sister Jana on hold waiting to hear what he had to say as well.
	Melissa showing us “Henry”. This is about an hour after he was born. They hadn’t settled on any names just yet.
	Melissa showing us “Henry’s” big feet. She says he has big hands and feet. He did not like her doing this, because just after I took the picture he cried real hard until Melissa covered him back up. I think it was just a little too cold to have a foot outside of the blanket.
	Ben holding “Henry”.

I know these two proud parents will have a lot to say on their blog about “Henry” including what his real name will be. So make sure you checkout their blog in the next week once they get home and settled down.

A large part of what I do for a living is pick investments for my clients, which requires me to watch the markets.  You might find it interesting that the cost to do the Twelve days of Christmas has gone up by 3.1% from 2006.  On a series note, this is a true reflection of a rise in inflation and market analysis series look at these figures to get a feel of what the economy is doing.  What I think is outrageous is the cost of “Calling Birds” has gone up 25% this year.  It costs more to get Calling Birds then it does Five Gold Rings.  I don’t know about you, but we should picket the bird store and force them to lower their prices.  =0  (I’m kidding if you didn’t detect the sarcasm in the last paragraph.) PNC Christmas Price Index – 2007Traditional

Just cut down tree and checking out the kill. The old man in the back is not my dad, he owned the farm. Nice man, lots of nose hair.

To give you an update on our home situation, we have been approved for a new home since August of this year. We have spent a number of months looking too. Nothing has jumped out to say, “this is the place.” We figure since home prices have gone up so high, we are going to get the home we want and not settle for something else. It is also tough with the markets pulling off, that if we wait six more months prices will become more reasonable again.Jolyn is the Primary President here in our ward and so we have this debate of pull her away from her calling, so we look around the neighborhood as well as else where. Mom and Dad have offered their home, which is in our price range, but I struggle with that because I don’t know if this house would ever feel like mine. I do not want to by a house and then feel like it belongs to someone else. So that is the home conundrum we are caught in. We spent some time in the temple on Tuesday looking for direction and we both felt strong to be patient and the correct answer will present it self when it is ready.

Loading the tree into the truck.

 Since it is looking like we will spend another Christmas in my parents basement, we decided that we needed infuse Christmas more this year in our lives. Instead of setting up the fake tree again, we wanted an experience and most of all the “smell” of a tree. We were going to Evanston and hike around the mountain to cut down a tree, but duty calls us to Vernal so we had to change our plans. We found a local tree farm, walked a good acer till we found our tree. Actually we found three trees we liked, we marked each area with a stick or set of rocks and then drove the truck to each location.  Jolyn and I would jump out of the truck, look at the tree, then drive to the next one. (The truth was, it was getting too cold and I failed to wear a hat.  All my body heat leaves my bald head. burrrr!)  We finally settled on this big plumb bushy tree.  I cut it down, then loaded it into the truck.  The tree standing there before we cut it down, didn’t look that big, yet it filled my entire truck bed.  After we drove it home and put it up, it was obvious a bigger tree then what our eyes had observed.  We plan to decorate it tomorrow on Thanksgiving day.  And boy does the house smell so good!The kids were very excited, they were bouncing around, poking and teasing one another.  I told the kids that when we arrived home that they had to go through the tree looking for spiders.  ”We can’t have any spiders or chipmunks in the house with us.”  After the moans  calmed down, Emily exclaimed that the wind while driving the tree home on the freeway, cleaned all of the spiders out for us.  That was perfect logic and I couldn’t come back with a good enough response to tease any further.