Hot July

 Oh hi halfway boy,

It’s been a hot, fairly uneventful week around here. It was 104° today.

Monday after we spoke to you we had the al pastor tacos that mom and ben made, the were pretty freaking good. Only Artie and aunt Patti and the Bergs came over. It was so fun to be together all weekend. After dinner we lit off Artie’s fireworks. He said it was a $500 pack. I imagine that meant it was $500 retail but he got it for less, but it was a pretty good pack. There were four or five boxes of those chained aerials, the big ones. Each box had twelve shots. It was pretty cool. After, we put the fire pit in the driveway and had a wee campfire for s’mores. It was late so I wanted to get it going fast. Luckily I had a bottle of uncle Tim’s favorite elixir, lighter fluid. I only put a few squirts on though, not his preferred 2/3rds of the bottle for six pieces of firewood. It was just so fun hanging out. 

In family news, Spencer’s farewell is next Sunday, and he starts home MTC that week. It seems that your cousin Madeline has a somewhat serious boyfriend, which is unexpectedly weird to me. Aaron, Cecily, Abi, uncle Justin, and aunt Patti all came down with Covid this week. Mom’s worried about it because she has girls camp this week. Personally, I’d choose Covid nine out of 10 times over church camp. But your mother is several more degrees more celestial than I am. I have a wee headache right now, mom thinks I should use one of the test’s, so I may get my preference if I’m not careful.

All that happened Tuesday of any report was I changed the oil on my little Ford. I also rotated the tires. I’m going to need to replace my lug nuts because my impact wrench distorts the crappy two piece ones that come with most wheels. I also threw down my first ever welds with my HarborFreight cheap welder I got. They kinda sucked but I think it’s something I can get the hang of. My biggest worry is properly adjusting my welding mask. It’s an inexpensive auto darkening deal also from HarborFreight. The electrical arc from welding is incredibly intense and can easily blind you. I need to set it to be darker next time.

Wednesday was a blessed day because there was no young mens. Mom’s been working on plans for girls camp, she’s completely obsessed with it. Wednesday night your brothers and I were the beneficiaries of that obsession. She wanted to go to the Pie in Ogden to ask about ordering gluten free and dairy free pizza like substances. So we got to go up there and eat Stromboli pizza and two cheese cheese bread, and mom got to ask 20 minutes worth of questions. The Pie didn’t disappoint either of us. It felt like a mini adventure and it was fun to be together. That’s where Ben spotted the Damien Lillard picture that I sent you.

Thursday night mom and I went to dinner with brother and sister Koyman. I made friends with Charlie when I was in the bishopric and we did tithing together. Well, nearly three years later we finally went. They are pretty cool people and fun to talk to. They asked mom and I point blank what we do to get you guys to go on missions. Mommy and I kinda looked at each other blankly, because we’re honestly not sure if we’ve done anything. All we could say is that we always just talked about missions, both about our service and when you guys would serve. But I’m not sure there’s anything we could do if you guys were not good strong faithful boys. They noticed how many boys between you and Ben either didn’t go or came home. I told him I was pretty freaking close to coming home. Charlie said his mission was tough too, he had zero baptisms. He served in Korea, it sounded rough in terms of never teaching or baptizing, weird food, and bad comps. Most missions are hard. He said for him that he was grateful that the benefits of serving were amazing but only slightly out weighed the difficulty of a mission. I had to agree. Oh, we ate at this place by the outlets in Lehi called Strap-tank. I had the fish and chips. Not quite as good as those ones in San Francisco, but pretty good for Utah.

Friday night mom made these pastries with ground beef and potatoes in them. Believe me when I tell you, they were way better than I described them and seemed like something you would like. Next time she’s going to replace the American cheese with mozzarella and maybe make some cheese sauce for the top.

I’m writing most of this letter Saturday night, today was mostly a chore day. This morning I started servicing the little Jeep to get it ready for inspection. I changed the air filter and added some catalytic converter cleaner to the gas tank. I’ll need to change the oil next week. I reset the check engine light earlier in the week and it stayed off till this morning. Hopefully after I do all my crap to it it will pass emissions. We’ve gotten two years out of it, I hope I can milk it along for a few more. I’d rather save our money for a trip next summer than for another crappy car. Hopefully it will get you through for a while after Joey goes on his mission. In the meantime, it will be car sharing, UTA, and rides. After, I took mom to the DI hoping to get McDonald’s out of it. I did, but I also got three hours of errands and doing stuff for the fancy ladies in the stake young women’s kingdom. Seams like it’s a competition to be more churchy than anything. Mom get a text and everything else is forgotten. Ben is fixing up his room a little. He painted some walls and got rid of his desk. I bought him a bookshelf from ikea and a tiny table. He put his guitar in there. It inspired me to start straightening out some of my spaces. But as I have at least a decade’s worth of messes, I don’t foresee actual completion. I did finish straightening up those shelves Artie gave me that were my mom and dad’s. I want to get my hot wheels out of my office so I have more room for my model collection. I’m trying to move it over in an organized fashion, but dang I have a bunch. I’m finding a few duplicates, so I’ll keep those for you. 

The news about conference realignment is all over the place right now. There are three leading theories. 1. Stay the PAC 10. I like this theory but I do not see it as permanent, so we may be going through this drama for a while. 2. Four to six teams my leave and join the Big 12. That would suck because Big 12 will always be second tier to the SEC and the BIG10. But it would be more stable and we could go back to dominating BYU, but in the context of a conference, it would be that much better. 3. Form an alliance with the ACC. this might give some sway for broadcast money, but mostly just be a crappy bowl agreement. I sort of hate this idea. 4. The crazy stuff. There have been some reports that the Utes and Colorado could go to the Big 10 if Oregon and Washington do. That could be cool, but it doesn’t feel likely. My favorite crazy one is that Utah could go to the SEC if they pick up Clemson and some others and need an even number. If heard two or three people on sports radio saying that’s not as outlandish as it sounds. That only scares me because I’m not sure how much longer whittingham is going to coach, but he would be awesome for making that transition.

Welp, it’s late and I have a pretty bad headache. I’ll finish this up tomorrow with the exciting happenings of a Sunday in the bluffdale 14th ward .

———-

Okay, it’s now Sunday night. It’s been a very quiet day, almost boring. Nothing of note about church. We had our classic roast beef and dad mashed potatoes. I worked on my model a little. It’s in that stage between assembly and painting where you are sanding and filling and sanding and filling. The boring part. I’m looking forward to painting it through, I’m going to try some new techniques. 

I’ve been thinking of you a lot, wondering how your interview went with your new President. I look forward to tomorrow as always. Today when we were putting away the chairs at church Parker Wes asking about you. 

Anyway, Love-YA-I-tell-YA! 

Pops