From the other side

Ok, it wasn't a kidney stone and I'm not saying it was worse, just horrible in a different way. I ended up with a severe infection in my "nether region", I'll just leave it at that. For those of you I told or for those of you that are in my wife's "inner circle" you know that it was a very painful situation with some very weird and uncomfortable things going on. Not a good time for me, but I'm glad I could add a good laugh to a few luncheons and cell phone call or two. Ha! Ha!

   Well I think I'm out-of-the-woods, they gave me a shot in the bum of strong antibiotics and a prescription of the same and I seem to be feeling a little better.

   The hardest thing for me was to actually take some time off to rest. I don't do that very well, but the doctor said if I did not rest then it was possible that my "nether region" could fall off. I rested!

    One of the things that has come up while I have been resting is I'm starting to get some feed back on my "blog". This feed back is coming from some people who have some personal interest to my comments. They are either questioning their involvement in a story, or whether all parts of the event are accurate, or lastly, some are worried that they are going to be incriminated through  my stories when they have either on their own, or through legal or psychological council, hoped that these things would lay dormant.

    Well I have this to say. History is written by those that get it on paper first. My disclaimer is that all of the events are accurate to my best recollection and totally from my point-of-view. For those that are concerned about their implication in the crimes, I mean events, they really should have thought about that when they decided to hang out with us. I might change some names to protect the innocent, we'll see.

So here's a good one.

I'm sure he's reading this, because word got back to me that he was one of the complainers, but a common theme from my childhood, you'll notice, is that my cousin Tony (name NOT changed to protect the innocent) will be at most of the catastrophic events that happened. There might be something to that.

   This one occurs at his parents house in Las Vegas, as from my earlier blog, "where was the adult supervision?"

   His parents had just installed a new fireplace in their family room. It was summer, I'm not even sure they had burned a fire in it yet. Well Tony and I decided we should see if it worked. So after piling every newspaper, magazine and loose piece of lumber from the backyard, we threw a match to it. Now that was a fire! 

    After we burned everything within reach we became bored. Remember "bored 12 year olds" not a good idea. So we leave that burning and go out back and the first thing we notice is the unbelievable amount of smoke coming out of the chimney. Sitting there at our feet was a box of 55 gallon plastic garbage bags. Picture light bulbs going on above our heads. Box in hand and on to the roof we go. 

   Now if there are youngsters reading this, do not try this at home, we were highly trained professionals.

   We took a bag and placed it over the chimney, it rapidly filled with heat and smoke. We released the bag and it went nearly 30' in the air and then rolled over and the smoke poured out like an Indian smoke signal. Now come on, how cool is that?!?! 

   We did this until all the bags were melted and we were still not bored. It had to be cool. So there has to be more bags inside the house right? So we scamper off the roof and run to the back door and open it...........Solid Wall of Smoke!! I am not lying the house is plumb full of smoke. 

   Once again panic sets in. I spend a lot of my childhood operating in panic mode. We are running through the house opening doors and windows. There is so much smoke you could write your name in the mirrors on the wall. So picture two 12 year olds running through the house with flapping towels and trying to clear all this smoke. 

   Now here's the best part. Tony's older brother Eric kept rare birds in cages in his room. Don't know what they were, just knew they were really colorful and usually made a lot of chirping sounds. As I ran by his room, no chirping, that's odd. I hit the skids and peek in. Colorful birds covered in soot and hanging upside down. 

  Now picture two 12 year olds trying to administer mouth-to-mouth to little birds while pumping their little chests.

   So needless to say we never even came close to cleaning that mess up, but we did take a blood oath to the fact that all we did was light a fire, much too large for the fireplace, and under no circumstances did we get on the roof or place anything in or on the chimney. I even think my uncle had the contractor check on how well the fireplace vented itself.

   I think I was grounded for the entire summer and forbidden to hang out with Tony. Talk about (barn door after the horse is out). The whole not hanging out with Tony didn't last very long any way. I think the fire in Kanarraville was that next summer. There are plenty more stories to come. 

   My mom was in town and she brought this newspaper clipping about a lady who raised boys and had all these things that happen while they were growing up. I scoffed.

Peace Out

Kidney Stones Suck!

I have racked my brain for the last 18 or so years to figure out what I could have done to be cursed with kidney stones. Oh sure, I have definitely done my fair share of naughty things, but for those of you that have had the experience of a kidney stone, I would have had to have destroyed a civilization to have been cursed with the amount of "stones" I have brought into this world.

It all started when Tyler and I were bachelors. We hadn't met Kelli yet and it was the summer of 1988. Tyler was not feeling well, he had a problem with his eyes and ears that caused him to get high fevers. So I was nursing him along and my back was killing me. I was trying to think of when I could have pulled it and why was it hurting so bad.I didn't know what was going on.  Well by midnight I was crawling around on the floor because I could not stand. Tyler was crying, I was crying, not a pretty picture at the Huntsman bachelor pad. What had I done to my back. And then a miracle, a half hour later no pain. I'm healed!

Well for those of you who have had a kidney stone know, I was not healed. It was phase 1 of the "journey". The stone at fought it's way out of the kidney and was now pleasantly floating in my bladder. The fun had only begun. 

Phase 2 began at 5;30am with a bathroom call. Man I had to go! And who had kicked me in the crotch? Well not only could I not go, what little did come out felt like hot lava! What the heck was going on? I had to get to a doctor, something was broken and I was losing my mind. Luckily Tyler felt a little better even if dad felt worse. So me and Tyler called in every favor we had and get a doctors appointment for 10:00 am. The question being could I make it to 10:00 am? I must have tried to go to the bathroom 50 times and all that came out was tears. Help me!

We get to the doctor and we get a "two-for-one", the doctor sees Tyler for his ears and me for my "whatever was going on". This is where it gets funny. Dr. Kilpatrick comes into the room and says "You have a kidney stone" and I say "Why?"  and he says "People just get them and it's hard to say why." so I say "OK, glad we found mine" and he says "OK" We stare at each other for a long time and he says "OK then" and I say " So when do you take it out?" and he says "Take it out of where?" "Out of me" I say. We stare at each other for a long time again. I'm in a lot of pain and not thinking too clearly. He stands and comes to me and puts his hand on my shoulder and speaks the words I will never forget "You pass it" With a shaky voice I say "How do you pass it?" and all he does is squeeze my shoulder. His next words were "What would you like for the pain." Two hours later on wobbly knees in my bathroom I was holding, in my newly purchased "strainer cup", the littlest freakin' thing you ever saw. I thought it would be golf ball size. It was smaller than a BB, but upon closer examination it did have barbs, but still. That much pain and such a little thing.

Well that was only the beginning. I am a veritable kidney stone factory. I have given birth to over 10 stones and counting. One so big it had to be pulverized by sound waves just so I could have the joy of passing all the little fragments that a 9 millimeter stone produces. Do you know how big 9 mil. is? That is the size of a 10 karat diamond for you ladies who like jewelry. That stone was so bad that before it got pulverized I found myself in my backyard at 2:30 in the morning willing to make a pact with the "devil" just to get it out of me. I was delirious.

So on Saturday my back starts to hurt and I have become an expert on the symptoms and phases of a kidney stone. I know the drill. I am am typing this between phases. I am appreciating the break, but know the worst is yet to come.

See ya on the other side.

My Missionary/ No adult supervision

OK, I didn't go on a mission (dang girls) and I don't know all the do's and don'ts to being on a mission, but I'm not exactly sure what Elder Huntsman is doing here. Is he baby sitting? Is he pushing an empty stroller? Is there something besides a baby in the stroller? (It is Australia after all) or is there something that Elder Huntsman has not told us about his mission?

At any rate it was great to hear from him on Mother's Day. Even though the first attempt to contact us was at 5:45am. Australia is 17 hours ahead of us and Tyler's math skills were not turned on. We talked to him for a little while and then convinced him to go to bed, it was 10:45pm there and to call us back when he woke up. That worked out much better.

To give a report, he is doing great. No headaches even though he is back out in the "bush" and his spirits are high even though he is in an area that is only a branch and there are only 30 people at Church, which they have to have in a converted mental ward at the hospital.

 He is getting a little "trunky" with only months left, but he is so driven that he knows the time will go by faster than he wants it to. We are trying to get all of our dates together for when we are going to get him. There is a lot of coordination that goes into that with the Church Travel Agency. We are very excited about being able to see him, less than 5 months.

The small town that Tyler is in has only a thousand or so people in it and he says it reminds him of Kanarraville, Utah. For those of you who don't know where that is, it is just before you get to Cedar City going north and it is where my mom was raised.

 My kids have spent a lot of time there. It was while Tyler was telling me about the town he's in and and how small and rural it was that I got to thinking about the summers in Kanarraville as a boy.

 All I can say is " Where was the adult supervision?"

 There are quite a few stories to tell from those infamous summers, many of them are historically documented, see flood of 1974, (that was not all my fault).

 One quick little story from the summer of '75. I was 13 years old my cousin Tony was 12. We were bored out of minds. Parents should not let mischievous 13 year olds get bored. Bad things will happen. We had run out of things to break. We had climbed every tree and let loose every caged or penned animal.

 When my father drives in from Cedar City with a present that he forgot to run by my mother...............FIREWORKS! These were not the wussy fireworks of now days. There was no such thing as "Safe and Sane". There were actual explosives in the package. Who can remember M80's? There were 4 of those! Did you know they were waterproof? If you dropped them in the irrigation ditch they wouldn't explode until they were under the road.They were a 1/4 stick of dynamite.  Cool! Where was the supervision?

 Here is where it gets good. There were "Bottle Rockets". Remember those? So named because they were a rocket on a long stick, that you put in a bottle and then lit and swoosh! Up into the sky and POW! We had 24 of these. The first 12 went as per the instructions. Then the wheels started turning. Surely you could launch them from other objects than just bottles? The next 10 were launched from posts, door frames, mailboxes and the back of one very mad pig. Then sheer brilliance. What if you broke the stick in half and through it after you lit the fuse? It would fly in whatever direction it was facing when it ignited. So Boss!

Crap! Only 4 left, the first three went like clock work. Spinning through the air and then zoom! off they would go and POW! The last one? Not so good.

 If any of you have ever been to a rural farming area, you notice that everyone has a field growing something. You also probably know what "summer wheat" is. It's about two feet tall dry yellow grass. Are you getting the picture? My mom's uncle had a 2 acre field of border to border "summer grass". The last "bottle rocket" no lie. To this day I ask Why? Why? As it shot towards the field I remember trying to run and catch it. Do you know how fast dry grass burns? It went like a shot then burnt for 2 hours. I can still remember the sound of the bell from that old fire engine. They couldn't put it out. It burned from road to road to fence. I can still remember the smell after the flames tore through the chicken coop. No not fried chicken, burnt chicken poop. There was a picture of my dad and all my uncles with soot on their faces, smoke behind them and me and my cousin sitting in the cab of my dads truck. We were grounded for most of the summer. I ask again. Where was the supervision?

Talk to you later

Shout out to my Sunday School Cllass

Ok, this is easily my favorite thing each week.  I get the incredible opportunity to teach the 15, 16, 17, 18 year olds at church, and whomever else wants to come into my class.  I am not sure if the Bishopric knows what they have done, and it really tests one's faith in the whole "called by inspiration"  theory, but nevertheless I love it.

I taught them today.......did I say "taught"?  I'm not exactly sure what you call what we do in there, but for the sake of other adults who might read this, I taught them today and we had a great time. 

The lesson was on King Benjamin, that is #15 out of the lesson manual (just in case Bro. Hansen goes to my blog), then the rest of the time we talked about Mothers.  Next week is Mother's Day after all.  You can tell a lot about a young person by the relationship he or she has with their mom. I had a great mom growing up and it is a marvel of human endurance that she is not in a home somewhere staring out the window muttering phrases like: " wait 'til your father gets home" or  "please get your little brother off the roof ".   To show my kids that my mother is still alive, lucid, and that she still loves me, we called her on speaker phone from our Sunday School room.  It went great, she said all the right things, and she does really love me.

I promised a "shout out" to my kids today, but they have to go to my blog and comment. 

So let's do this, and I am doing this by memory so if I miss any names, forgive me and write me back to tell me I missed you.

Here goes-

Dallin, Justin, Jordan, Jacob, Andrew G, Sarah, Jesse, Dane, Christopher, Spencer, Madeline, Karah, Andrew P, Nathan, Vic, Liz, Nicholas, Leah, Melissa, Abigail, Carlee, Jessica, Cailee, Paige, Jared and anyone else who might have stumbled into my classroom.  Oh and if I messed up on any of the spelling I'm sorry.

I love these kids more than they know.  They bring so much joy to my life and keep me grounded in the Gospel.  They have such incredible testimonies, it lifts me up.

So there is my shout out to some very cool kids.

Peace Out!!

p.s.  If any of you kids who read this have my scriptures, I want them back. ( They are sacred )

If you could meet anyone

I was driving home from work today, I know it's Saturday and that's a whole 'nother set of issues saved for another day. I can't remember when the last time I did not just assume I was working Saturday. Man I need  a vacation, but I digress. As I said, I was driving home today listening to ESPN on the radio ( remember I have a sickness ) and they were talking about if you could meet anyone in the world, who would that be? I imagined that they were talking about a sports figure and I'm sure they were, it was ESPN after all. I started to think about who I would want that to be. Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, anybody on the Cubs and as cool as that would be I could not help but remember the day when I got my wish. 

Even as a young boy I dreamed of one day meeting the Prophet. It didn't matter who it was at the time, I just wanted to meet the Prophet. 

Anytime I was ever asked that question " If you could meet anyone in the world , who would it be?" I would always answer "The Prophet."

Well as you get older and more realistic, you begin to understand that there are lots of things in life that you dream of that are probably not going to happen ( no chance of dating Farrah Faucet ) so I had pretty much come to grips with the fact that I was not going to just get to meet the Prophet. Oh yea of little faith.

In the fall of 2004 I get an opportunity to work on the new visitors center at the Temple in Hawaii. It was a great job ( how bad can any job in Hawaii be ), we stayed in a beach house, we swam in the ocean and worked at the Temple. Not a bad gig.

Well while we were there we heard rumors that President Hinckley was coming to re-dedicate the portions of the visitors center and temple grounds that were finished. My area was not complete ( not my fault ). So I scheduled my next trip back to coincide with his coming. I brought Kelli along with me for a little vacation and the slim hope that we might see the Prophet.

As the day approached we were told that he might not even come into the visitors center and if he did he probably wouldn't come into our area because it was under construction. Bummer.

Well Kelli is outside just kind of in a hoovering pattern, not knowing if she could stay, well you know her, she goes to the Elder in charge and asks if she can stay and he says they are trying to keep it low-key. Kelli says "what if I'm working?" I peek out of the doors at one time to see where she went and sure enough she's washing windows.

Well the Prophet and his entourage arrive and we go into our construction area and close the door. I find some reason to be working right by the door, just in case. 

The next thing you know the door swings open wide and I am standing face to face with President Hinckley. He peeks his head in and looks at me and asks "what kind of 'mud' are you using to carve that rock?"

Did he just speak to me? What did he just say? Did he say "mud"? How cool is that? Only an old cement guy would know to call it "mud".  Well my lips started to move, but I don't think sound was coming out.  He's got to be thinking, maybe the cement guy is retarded.  I eek out just in time to save some face  "uh, uh it's regular plaster." How lame was that?  I could have said anything.  There was my moment to converse with the Prophet and all I can come up with was "uh,uh it's regular plaster. "  Ugh! 

How about "Hi President Hinckley. I'm so glad you chose to peek in at our work. Would you like to carve a little of the "mud" just for fun to say you did."  Ha!  Ha!  We share a laugh, the Prophet and I. 

No, not me "uh, uh, uh it's regular plaster" that was my once-in-a-life-time moment face to face with the Prophet.  Then to make matters worse Kelli snaps the photo just as I finish speaking and President Hinckley is thinking "Yep, he's retarded! "

But it was still very, very cool. I will never forget the feeling of the Spirit that was in that room in his presence.

I will be much better prepared for my next encounter.

If you could meet anybody on earth, who would that be?

Love to hear back

See Ya