Thanksgiving

We have officially began the Christmas season. Tuesday night we went down to the Conference center in Salt Lake and saw the play "Savior of the World". We took Paige, Grandma and Grandpa. The next day several of us were sitting in the dentist chair bright and early. We loaded up the cars and all went to the movie. It was wonderful. After we ate an entire cow at the rib place. wonderful evening. Today, is Thanksgiving and we are having dinner in Jeremy and Michelle's house. More to come.

Jeremy's Vision of All Loveliness

Todd has asked me to write up a little blurb on Jeremy and Michelle. You are going to forgive all grammar, spelling, and convention errors as you read. This is no easy task, for there is a long, long, long, story associated with these two. I am afraid I must back up to 4 years ago, this February. Since I have been asked, it will of course, come from my take on the whole situation. If this is not satisfactory then Todd should write it himself and or have the two of them write their own take on this fairy tale romance. We are all aware of the famous story of Cinderella, well, this is Cinderfella in reverse. We can not believe that this beautiful, accomplished, wonderful young woman loves our sweet Jeremy. Now we love him unconditionally, but to have "The Vision of All Loveliness" love him, it is truly a dream come true. Quoting Cinderella herself, "It is more than I could have hoped for". In 2005 Jeremy was sitting with me in the stands at the state wrestling in Casper. He was finished and it was before the finals and we were relaxing and talking. We were sitting above the Green River section 20 rows up. Jeremy says to me. "Mom see that girl. She is the vision of all loveliness". I kid you not, he was that dramatic. He has always been dramatic. He wore a black silk cape to church every week for a year. He has always been in the super hero world, unless he was asleep of course. I squinted and saw a small girl with long blond hair. I teased him as only a mother should. He said she was the one for him, the girl he was going to marry. Clearly, how is a mother supposed to resist teasing, it is not physically, mentally or emotionaly possible. We noticed that she was with the Green River crowd and that was all we knew. That Monday after state I had the opportunity to have a student teacher in my room out of the University of Wyoming. Her name was Tiffany, and she just happened to be from Green River. She is due all the credit for making this engagement and marriage happen. I was telling the ladies in my room about how funny and silly Jeremy was over this girl. Tiffany, who has a brother and husband that wrestled, pipes up and said she knows exactly who the girl is. Weird. Jeremy has Tiffany ask Michelle's mom if she thinks that Michelle would be willing to go out with him. She says sure and he is on the phone ready to go. I wish I could tell you all about the hysterical phone conversation from his end. He sets the date and is going to go to Green River with a friend for a double date. He is totally revved up and can not wait. They drive over and are unable to navigate to her house. After the third call telling the girls they were lost, the girls found out their location, the Pizza Hut, and told them to stay there, they would come rescue them. It was a wonderful date and Jeremy was a goner. Unbeknown to her, she had him hook, line, and sinker. He created a plan and asked her to his Junior Prom. She responded yes with three pizzas from Pizza Hut being delivered to Evanston High. If you knew Jeremy at all you would know that pizza is his favorite food. The prom was a wild two day extravaganza. It was truly a dream night for Jeremy. It will be fun someday to get Michelle's take on this same situation. From then on, they dated off and on for the next year, his senior year and her first year at BYU. It was only a handful of dates. Jeremy left on his mission, she may have written him 6 or so times. He came home on a Wednesday and by Friday he was calling Green River to locate a number for her at BYU. Michelle agreed to go out with him that Saturday. He was just as revved up as he was 4 years earlier. He took her to the Scottish Festival in Payson, Utah. They have dated all fall, all over the Utah Valley and have now set a date for marriage on May the 9th. We don't know how our Cinderfella landed this beautiful princess, but we know we are grateful and thank our Heavenly Father daily for her in his life.

Green Truck

Back in 1996 Grandpa Chuck, Granny, Debbie and Me all went down to Utah to by a truck or we were in Utah and decided to go looking for a truck I can't remember because it was so long ago. We walked around until Granny found this nice green truck. We all piled in it and took it for a drive. It seemed like the perfect truck. Four doors lots of room and comfort. The truck has done about everything that two guys can think of putting it through. It went to New York City, twice. It has been hooked to all sorts of loads hauling horses, cows, pipe, hay, tractors, campers, cars that have broke down on the freeway and wrestlers. At 120,000 miles it needed a new engine and at 200,000 we needed a dually. Grandpa had built a rather nice but long hay hauling trailer that crushed all of our other trucks.

Grandpa, Marty, Me and a bunch of high school kids all started working on making the truck into a dually with a little flat bed to go along with it. It has taken three years of our time and three years of welding and auto classes to finish the project.

Grandpa figured that they put in over 400 man hours of welding and fabrication work on the bed. Marty put on about 12 layers of paint, 3 coats of primer, 3 coats sealer, 3 coats color and 3 coats of clear. In the end, the entire truck was repainted. Marty and Grandpa teased me that everytime they saw me I was wiring on the bed. They figured that I had spent more time wiring than all of the other jobs. It has a few tricks that we can't tell anybody but here are the ones that I can tell you about the bed.

• The floor and the length of the bed stayed the same as the bed of the original truck.
• The box behind the cab is the same height as the sides of the original truck.
• The lights and wiring have been kept seperate of the original truck.
• The two little boxes in front of the duals are the only pre-made tool boxes.
• There are no handles on the tool boxes that we made and they open with remote buttons.
• The tool box doors all open with either a spring assist or hydraulic assisted rams.
• There are three seprate electrical selinoids that handle the lights and accessories.
• There are air bags that assist in keeping the truck running level.
• There is an air compressor system with an 100 gallon air tank hidden in the bed.
• The fuel intakes are both hidden.
• There are slideable trays in the lower boxes for bolts and electrical connectors.
• The upper tool boxes use car door latches to hold them shut.

There is a story about the latches. Marty, Grandpa and me were in a debate about the latches. I had purchased latches for the outside of the boxes but we couldn't figure out how to get them to hold on to the doors. Grandpa figured the the only way was to put the latch right on top of the lid which would of caught water and ice. We all knew there wasn't any easy, good places for the latches but we were at a stand still. Then Marty remembered putting on automatic door openers on a pickup for a kid a couple of years ago and so he suggested that idea. It was a winner. It is the best trick of the whole bed.