Why did I watch this movie AGAIN ?!

Instead of hearing "Willow, you idiot" (when he turned Raziel into a goat) I heard "Josh you idiot! The movie was pretty stupid the first time back in the late 80s ... you thought it would be better now?! you IDIOT!"

Where did the summer go?!

Seriously! The kids start school tomorrow. Josh Jr and Brooklyn are back to Rideview Elementary in the morning (kinda funny that Ben who is in between those two never went to Ridgeview).

I gave them each a Father's Blessing for the upcoming school year. Savannah and Catalina don't start preschool until next Monday so their blessings were saved for Sunday night. I guess their summer vacation doesn't end for another few days ... but then is it really a summer vacation if you've never gone to school before?

Anyway, I had this list of projects I was going to get done this summer. It started great at the end of May until June. Then my second list was done in June before Myra was born. Then my third list was completed during my time off during Myra's first weeks at home. The July list really never took off (I blame the heat and swimming). And my August list is not likely to see much progress (the motivation is just ... not ... there.)

So there it is ... the lamest most non-sensical (arguably) post I have written. I blame my laziness on two hours of mediocre basketball. My game was fine but sometimes I wonder why some of the guys come out to play. Exercise? Then you would think they would at least move around. To hang out? Then you would think they would sit on the stage and cheer those of us who came to PLAY on. Defense? Clearly no. Offense? Ha! So why then? Not sure but my team had a few and it makes it a lot less fun. But I think I'm just getting older and grumpier.

Anyway, sorry there are no real laughs in this one. I promise to do more with it tomorrow ... I think we're going to do family swim at the VGRA pool. They are playing Finding Nemo in the pavilion so that might be really enjoyable.

Good night world! Sleep well and wake up happy! :)

Is there a more relaxing sound than a nice, soft rain? Or more exciting than a loud, hard rain?

I just love rain. Everything about it makes me smile. You might be saying to yourself "That can't be true," but it IS!

I love the soft rains that go on through the night and the way it soothes me to sleep better than any music can.

I love the hard, pouring rains that batter buildings and sound like they are trying to tear through the roof.

I love getting "caught" in the rain. Being in a store or on a walk and the clouds darken and you feel the sprinkles and then, if you are lucky, the torrential downpour.

I love having an excuse to have to run in the rain to the car. "Don't worry honey. I will brave the dangerous water on my skin, hair, and clothes. I will bring the car around and an umbrella so you can avoid getting wet." All for show ... it's really just all for me to be able to do what I have always loved doing in the rain ... playing like a 5-year old kid!

When I lived in Orem, Utah we had a porch over the garage that was not fully enclosed (in truth we were only kept from falling to safety by a rather questionable metal railing). Sitting on the porch as the rains came down all around us (you could see off the porch on three sides) is my earliest memory of when I began my love affair with rain. We used to "sneak" out and have wood chip races down the street gutters (or the middle of the street if it had rained hard enough). I am not ashamed to admit I still ache to do this every time I see rushing water in the street.

On my mission in Los Angeles, CA there was a four-month stretch where I served in the Long Beach area. It has now become an entirely different mission but that is another story for another blog ... don't worry, all in due time my loyal readers. I remember one day when the rains came so hard that we had to get off our bikes and walk them home because the water was too deep to ride in. Most other days it would just leave a nice muddy trail up the middle of your back, but on this day it was like I could hear God calling "Noah! Noah!" only He always sounds like Bill Cosby when I think of that. Elder Burton and I got back to our apartment and were completely soaked to the bone (so much for "dry-cleaned" suits, eh?!) But instead of getting dried off, we simply hung our suit coats up and went and played in the street. There was at least two feet of water in the places where the gutters could usually be found and it was about four inches deep in the middle of the street. We got out some sleds that one of the neighbors had (they must have taken them on trips 'cause there is never snow in Long Beach) and dove on them into the "river" in the street. The water drained away within just a few hours but that was one of my most favorite "playing time" memories from my mission years.

There are many other stories I could post of the rain, and I probably will when I get a few months in and need more topics. But today the subject was important because we had to rush all 8 of us through a medium density downpour out of Ridgeview Elementary school down to the safety of our car after attending meet the teachers night. It was like a scene from a movie where the team has to make a plan of attack and then execute, dealing with challenges as they arise from nowhere. It was agreed in our family pow-wow that I would carry Catalina (3) and Savannah (almost 5). Karen would carry baby Myra. Josh Jr would take the car keys and lead the charge (he is faster than me when I am carrying two kids, but with just one I think I could still take him). Ben and Brooklyn were on their own. :) Through the screaming and shouting (and Cat crying because "da watah is gettin' on my showt an' I don' yike it!") we made it to the car and enjoyed a good laugh about how soaked we were. Sadly, I ruined it by yelling at the kids who began arguing over who had to sit in the back ... in my defense, I believe rainy situations create a sort of martial law where you play a less official game of musical chairs. Take what you got and be glad you're not getting wetter!

Here's a "hail" picture from last summer at the pool. I was "rescuing" Karen and Catalina, but we all know I was just making an excuse to play in the rain/hail. :)

What do Cases, Lockards, Shepards, Campanellas and Shaws have in common?

The short answer? They are all our friends and family.

The longer answer? They were all in attendance today for our special Sacrament meeting, during which I had the opportunity to exercise my Priesthood authority and give a name and a blessing to our 6th child, Myra Jasmine Case.

This blog will not make you laugh and hopefully will not make you cry, but it needs to be written. I am not a perfect man, not in the least. I make more mistakes than someone with my testimony of the Gospel should be allowed to make. For some reason my Heavenly Father has seen fit to bless my life with a ridiculous amount of blessings. A few of these just on the subject of relationships:

- A beautiful wife who for some crazy reason adores me. 6 amazing children that still want to give me a hug and a kiss good night after I have yelled at them for stupid things all day long.

- Parents and siblings from my family of origin that are also imperfect, but seem to love me perfectly and provided me with great growing-up experiences and the opportunity to find out who I am (still working on it) and love me all the way through it.

- My married-in family (aka the Lockards) is awesome too. I think they are more like me than they would care to admit, but they are also different enough to keep it interesting (I seriously cannot follow many of the computer-related conversations, though I try just as hard to understand them as they do when I am going on about sports).

- Friends that I've known for what seems like forever. I can miss talking to Craig for years and we can pick right up where we left off. And the Campanellas are just kindred spirits. They are the family that we chose instead of marrying in or being born with. Too much love for them to summarize here, I'll have to blog about it another day.

The bottom line is that all of these wonderful people have testimonies of the truthfulness of Our Heavenly Father's Plan and they have true faith in our Savior Jesus Christ. This means the world to me. I said before (and in my testimony today) that I am a very imperfect man and as such my efforts to live worthy have seen highs and lows. I'm not sure I will ever truly be worthy of the Atonement that my Savior suffered through on my behalf, but being surrounded by family and friends that are "imperfect" too gives me comfort in knowing that we can all get there if we work together and try to love one another.

-

I forget who was quoted as saying it but "The little things are the big things." I believe this is true of the Gospel and I am committed to working harder on those little things so that my ENTIRE family (for we are ALL eternal brothers and sisters) can return to live with OUR Heavenly Father someday. And (this is highly unorthodox but) I blog these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Why are you smiling like that?

Today I was able to spend a little time catching up with an "old friend." He's almost 134 but in good condition for his age. (Just kidding Craig! But I am only off by about a century!)

I've known Craig Shaw for about 18 years now I guess. We attended high school and early morning seminary together (I use the word "attended" very loosely as we "missed" as much time as we made it there ... I was a bad influence, but I still blame him!)

He has two boys of his own, Ethan and Timmy, and they are just like all children: mirror images of their parents. It is fun to see the idiosyncrasies of yourself in your own children, but even more enjoyable to see it in other people's kids. They were a delight to have over (wish Mary could have been here too) and Ben really enjoyed playing with them.

One of my favorite memories with Craig from our glory days at the Institute of Religion in Greeley CO, is ping pong. There was not much else to do in the building (other than all the religious stuff, which we clearly were too young to appreciate). So we played ping pong. Craig had grown up playing the game and was clearly much better than I. So much so in fact that he began playing left-handed to "even things out." Unfortunately, I was pretty good by that time with my right hand so we eventually agreed to both play left-handed, which really leveled the playing field.

Now there was rarely a line to play ping pong at the institute so we found ourselves playing quite often. Not daily, but at least 3-5 times per week and for several hours at a time. No matter who you are or what your talent level is, if you practice something that much you will definitely get better at it. I know we sure did. We began playing against others left-handed and could easily defeat anyone who dared challenge either one of us. Of course Craig could still, and probably always will be able to, beat me righty against righty, but we both got very good left-handed.

Another seemingly unrelated pasttime we had in those days was watching movies with large groups of people. I became familiar with a much broader genre of films through this activity and this leads us to our inevitable conclusion where the brilliant Josh ties everything together at the end. (He really is boastful isn't he?!) One of the favorite movies to watch time and again was ... wait for it ... The Princess Bride.

There is a scene in that movie (if you are one of those weirdos who has NOT seen it), where the Dread Pirate Roberts (the presumed "evil" character) is having a sword fight with Inigo Montoya (one of the "good guys" who later helps save the princess). The two swordsmen are equally matched but Inigo is smiling all through the battle. His foe queries him "Why are you smiling like that?" To which Inigo replies "Because I know something you don't know. I am not left-handed!" after which he switches his blade to his right hand and begins dominating the fight. Then the Dread Pirate Roberts begins smiling and the previous dialogue is repeated in reverse with the pirate announcing his dominance with his right hand in similar fashion. (Seriously if you have not seen the movie then you just have to watch it! Go ahead ... I'll wait ... yes it is THAT important! Go on. This blog isn't going anywhere.)

Okay, now that you've seen that scene (and the rest of the movie I hope, except the "kissing parts" ... ha ha) bring your mind back to the ping pong table with Craig and I both battling away. Not always, but more often than not, a small crowd would begin to watch us play. Partly because we were pretty good (not trying to boast but some volleys would go on for 10 minutes or more) but mostly because, as I mentioned before, there wasn't much to do at the institute. Invariably one of these long volleys would get boring for Craig or I and we would look mischieviously at the other and something like this would occur:

Craig: Why are you smiling like that?

Josh: Because I know something you do not know.

Craig: What is that?

Josh: I am not left-handed! (tosses the paddle to his

other hand and smashes the ball across the table)

Craig: (deftly returns the speeding ball while a sly grin crawls across his face)

Josh: Why are you smiling like that?

Craig: Because I know something you do not know.

Josh: What is that? (all the while he is thinking "Oh crap!")

Craig: I am NOT left-handed either! (spins the paddle to his right hand and returns the volley across the table with such force that you will forever see the ball mark it left).

Grandma's got game! :)

Why is this blog so short?

Today was a roller coaster of emotions, weather, volume/noise level and motivation.

Any of these may be the cause,

but the most likely answer to the Title question is this:

Because I said so, that's why!

:)

Thanks to all parents in the world who have ever uttered that phrase, which is a perfect end-all, be-all for virtually any situation.

(Besides, y'all read my really long post yesterday and for that you deserve a break!)

Is it wrong to pray for money?

I don't like cats. Not in the least. Oh sure they can be very cheerful friends and bring lots of joy to this existence. But I don't like them. At all. In my head I am re-writing the popular Dr Seuss book "Green Eggs and Ham" ... the new title is "Dumb Cats and Flan" ... definitely not worth quoting for you. If you've ever read the book you can probably re-write it yourself.

So right now you have a crucial decision to make. You're asking yourself "Self ('cause who really calls themselves by their own name?!) ... what on earth does Josh's dislike for cats have to do with praying for money? Three blogs in and this nut job is not making sense anymore (if he ever did before). Do I really want to read on forever to see the connection? It's like a game of Tri-Bond gone horribly wrong! For those adventurous souls (or those with countless hours in the day and clearly nothing better to do) with curiousity that would make George (the monkey ... people you HAVE to keep up!) turn away in shame, please read on for the exciting conclusion.

I really cannot stand cats. But they LOVE me! I think they may be horribly mean creatures and they know I am so allergic to them and they like the feeling of power they have over this poor biped animal. Maybe not, but I just avoid them like the plague. That is ... until a little over three years ago.

It was Karen's idea really. She had that "twinkle in the eye" and I have not yet learned in 12 years how to resist that look. "Can we keep her?" she asked me. What choice did I have? If we left her behind there is no chance she would have survived to adulthood, let alone the breezy summer night. So we brought her home and she has been with us ever since. And you know the funny thing is that the noise she makes and her hair that ends up all over the place really don't bother me like they have with other cats. And she LOVES me! She is always playing around my feet and just begging me to pick her up and cuddle with her. AND I DO IT!!! Like some lovesick teenager I just melt when she turns those cute eyes up and me and says "Daddy I love you. Pick me up!"

(Holy crap! This guy's off the deep end! His freakin' cat talks to him?! I am definitely not interested in the connection with praying for money anymore ... unless it's for psychiatric help 'cause this guy needs it bad. I better keep reading. Maybe I'll start praying for him too.)

Okay, so you're probably getting tired of waiting for the connection to the title of the post so I'll "land the plane" (this is what one of my co-workers used to tell me to do when the stories got too long ... I heard it way too often). It began one summer even... huh? what's that? oh right the money and cat connection ... got it!

As a family we say prayers together every night. (What in the ? We just told him to land the plane! Like the characters in the Clue movie: "Get on with IT!") We take turns and once you say your prayer then you get to pick who goes next. Our cat gets very upset and will run out of the room if she is not one of the first ones picked. Then she always picks "mommy" or "daddy" after a long, deliberate pause while her eyes scan the room for reverent children. But her prayers are always genuine and she is rather aware of the needs of the individual family members. (Seriously?! Now the cat prays with them?! What a waste of my precious time in life!)

So tonight just before prayers she walks over and curls up on my arm (I'm laying on the floor at this point). I ask her "What's up?" and she says to me "I had a bad day." It is hard to understand her (of course you idiot! she's a CAT!) but we've had her for so long now that I am pretty good at knowing what she is trying to say, even if the words are more just sounds. She goes on to tell me that "Vannah" (that's our 4-year old, Savannah, but she can't say her name ... yet) wouldn't play with her and that "Book" (that's our 6-year old Brooklyn, but Rs are hard for our precious cat to pronounce ... cut her some slack) was mean to her.

All of that leads to this final, closing paragraph. In her prayers tonight, our beloved cat made sure to ask for Book and Vannah's dentist appointments to go well tomorrow (they are both having teeth pulled). This was sweet and just the cutest thing ... but then she began to tell a story (I think, still hard to understand even the "Amen" at the end) about how excited she was that Vannah and Book were going to get "yots of money fum da toof faiwy." So I think when you're young it's okay to "pray for money" especially if it is for your sisters who you love so much. What say you blog-followers?

Editor's Note: Catalina Jacquelle Case (our "cat" who turned 3 years old in June) is just adorable. I have many more stories to share of her life so far, but she brightens every single day with her smile and unique perspective on life. She has prayed for Santa Claus (to be able to make her lots of toys and dolls), Pooh Bear (that he can find some honey), and more than once for her baby dolls (who apparently were very sick at the time). It is such a blessing to have 6 beautiful children and I'm finally okay with being called a cat-lover!