April 10, 2005

My computer has been down for the past several weeks, so I haven't made an entry recently. It's should be fairly telling that I haven't had time in the last 45 days or so to fix my computer -- infact for the past three weeks I haven't even turned it on (I've been bringing my notebook home from work however).

I got a modest bonus from work (a pleasant surprise I wasn't expecting), so I used part of it to replace the mainboard and hard drive on my home machine. I also added another gigabyte of memory. Kevin mentioned to me this evening that when he at WestWorld Computers before leaving on his mission (1996) the fastest computer processor was a 33 mHz, and the absolute most memory you could put in a computer was 32 megabytes. I now have two gigabytes of RAM in my computer -- which in 2005 is uncommonly large, I suspect that in five or ten years from now 2 gigabytes of RAM will be uncommonly small (if we use RAM at all).

Enough about computers...

Here's a brief recap of the past thirty days: We leased a van, we drove to Utah, we found out Erin is pregnant.

After thinking about it for some time, and doing a fair amount of research, we decided to lease a 2005 Pontiac Montana. It's quite a nice van (as far as mini-vans can be nice). It has a built-in DVD system -- which was a non-negotiable feature for Erin, and an automatic sliding passenger door. The rear seats also fold down. While driving, Gracie becomes quite engrossed watching DVD's (her current favorite is The Incredibles) -- Matt on the other hand couldn't care less. He sits with arms raised, and hands behind his head most of the time. Matt is extremely determined to do things for himself. For instance, he insists on buckling his carseat himself -- which is tough, because at his age he doesn't have the strenght or the dexterity to do it. Needless to say, getting in and out of the car has become moderately frustrating.

One of major influences in the decision to get the van was that we had decided to go to Utah to visit the Ritchie's and to attend general conference. We had assumed that the van (or better said, the DVD system) would make the 15 hour trip more palatable for the kids. The trip back to Calgary was better, but the trip to Utah was nigh unto unbearable. The DVD system did nothing for Matt, and Gracie kept getting frustrated because she couldn't fall asleep in her carseat. At one point all four of us were yelling. On the trip down, we learned a some things about the configuration of the van (ie: tilting the seats back to promote comfortable sleeping), and the trip home was much more enjoyable.

Utah was fun. For the first time I felt like I could live there. The weather was great -- the community that Brad and Amy live in seems really nice, everything just seemed good. The kids had fun with thier cousins. Gracie and Annie got along quite well. Gracie was over-stimulated most of the time, and was frequently given to tears -- but she had a good time nontheless. Matt did quite well with his afternoon naps but struggled a bit with nighttime. The sun was up early and shone into the room we stayed in, waking Matt up at 6:00 AM the first few mornings we were there.

Almost all of the Calgary group got sick while in Utah. It started with Lara, then Erin and Melinda, then me, then the kids.... We were introduced to a cold remedy called "Airborne", which seemed to work quite well.

While in Utah, I worked on a website for Brad for a couple of days, and on Thursday we skied Brighton. I was almost at the peak of my sickness on the Wednesday before, and had decided not to go, but when I woke up to 47" of new snow in the mountains, and a perfectly blue sky, I reconsidered how sick exactly I was. On Friday, I paid the price. The skiing was great, some of the best I can remember.

Conference was nice. It's really something to be in the Conference Center. I attended the Saturday afternoon and Priesthood sessions. This is my third time attending conference in the Conference Centre, and it still impresses me. It's quite remarkable to hear the hum of 20,000 people come to a complete silence at the first appearance of the prophet. The sound of 20,000 folding seats -- closing almost instantaneously -- followed by utter quite, is quite unique. I can't think of any other place or event where that many people can be that quite, and show that much respect. The congregation rises to it's feet, and becomes silent before the prophet can make more than two steps into the room.

One of the highlights of the trip was getting to spend some time with David Stratton Waite. We met him for dinner on Tuesday evening at the Macaroni Grill. It was great to see him again. He tolerated the noise of the kids, and the constantly interupted conversations for about an hour, then we finally gave up and determined to meet again another night without the kids. So, on Thursday after skiing, David and I went out for dinner and got a chance to catch up. Getting together with David is quite intersting -- he's got a way about him. I can't explain it, but somehow even though we don't get a chance to speak to each other more than once or twice a year, and even though we don't spend time together in person more than every three or four years -- somehow, when we are together, it's like we've never been apart. I've often thought that the bond we created as missionary companions, is somehow stronger than all the time we've spent apart. We spoke about family, work, books, church, future plans. It was great. David is great.

Lastly, Erin is pregnant. Though I hadn't planed on an exact date, nor had Erin and I really spoken about it, I've been feeling like it was time for us to have another child. Number three is kind of intimidating, but I'm sure it will be great. Erin is starting to become quite ill -- moreso than I remeber with Gracie or Matthew. She's nauseated and tired most of the time. I hope we can all make it.