Pictures from the beach

What's in a name

The time has come for us to buy a second car; a minivan. As reliable and serviceable as our little Suzuki Esteem is, we just can't fit another car seat into it, not to mention all the camping gear we are slowly accumulating. We've been talking about this for a while now, and just last Monday made our first foray onto an actual car dealership lot. In fact, this is my first foray ever. I've never been in a position to buy a car before and have never test drove anything. Rob's an old hand at this so I let him do most of the talking. Anyway, what I never realized before is that all car salesmen have strange names. At least, I must assume they do. We've looked at three different brands of vans this week with three different car salesmen, each with an odd or unusual name. Sno showed us the Mazda, Butch showed us the Kia, and Cleve showed us the Toyota. Is there a rule about this in the car salesman code? Do they change their names to make them more memorable? I don't understand. Can it be coincidence that three different men in different parts of the state who have the same job and have weird names are the three men that we happen to run into on the dealership lot? 

In case you were wondering, we like the Toyota the best, but it is pretty much out of our price range unless we get one that is older then we want to go. The mazda and kia were ok, but the quality is obviously laking compared to the Toyota. Cleve says that he's going to look real hard for us, even calling other dealers in town, to find a van that fits our requirements as far as price, year, and miles. We'll see how hard that really is. 

Last Weekend

I've been trying to download pictures from our weekend on the west side all day and it is just not working. This is the only one that will work, and it isn't nearly the best I have. But since the weekend was to honor Elaine's birthday I suppose it is appropriate to have this one on the blog. At least you get to see the cake Rob and I got for her, though I'm not sure you can really appreciate just how big it really was from this picture. The thing was gargantuan! Black Forrest, and no, we did not make it. I'm not a big fan of cherries so I really couldn't put my heart into it. Besides the fact that our recipe called for cherry brandy and I didn't fancy another trip to the liquor store. I don't know what the alcohol content of this cake was. I figured if I didn't know I could just say it had none. It certainly didn't taste boozy...

Why?

I just received an email from my mom telling me that one of her friends, and mine, from our old Mesa ward passed away today. There were many of the women in that ward who influenced my life but few more then Ann Rogers. She was my Mia Maid advisor and I got to know her pretty well because I was the Mia Maid president. Then after I started college she helped me get a job at her brother's clinic when I was at home. She was the accountant there so I saw her every day and really enjoyed her company. 

I remember when she was called into Young Women all us girls were sceptical and probably a bit unfriendly towards her. She wasn't one of the 'cool mom's' who act just like one of the girls. She had lots of boys but only one daughter who was much older then us. In fact, one of the first things she did was veto one of our planned activities which, I think, was to go to the mall and do something (now which YW value would that have classified as?...) You can imagine that this did not make her very popular. But I can vividly remember thinking, as I was listening to all my friends complain and bash her (I might of joined in, I hope I didn't) I can remember thinking that she might not be as fun and hip as our other leaders, but that she had more substance, more dependability, more of what I wanted to be like when I grew up. As I came to know her more I learned that she was a smart, funny, kind, and generous person, one worthy of my emulation. She had many trials to bear, including the estrangement and rancor of her eldest son who left the church and disowned his family. However, just in the last while he has been returning to church and his family. I grateful that she was able to be here for that.  She was diagnosed with leukemia just last Thursday and passed away today from a brain aneurism. I know that she is in a better and happier place, but I ache for her family. Its hard for us who are left behind.

Ok, who isn't excited for this?