Volume 19

SUNDAY NEWS
July 12, 2009

It is hot here in Arizona in case you haven’t heard. It got to at least 116 degrees this week. Lori has been struggling with unexplained back pain. She hasn’t been able to work this week. She has been moving around like a 90 year old lady. She has made two trips to the emergency room trying to figure out what is causing it. They think it is a compressed disc.

We have a big list of things to do before we leave on our trip this week. First among them is to get Lori healed. Right now Lori is not capable or hauling a suitcase through an airport let alone enjoy horseback riding on the beach. She is taking so much pain medication that she is not allowed to drive. Shelby drove her home from the emergency room one day. Lori has been to the emergency room twice, a chiropractor and homeopathic doctor twice, her family doctor, her female doctor, and had several tests. What is frustrating is that the medical field only seems interested in treating the pain and not the problem. The medical field is the equivalent of putting air in a leaky tire. “Treat’em and street’ em.” They need to look for and fix the hole in the tire instead of just continuing to put air into a flat tire.

Shopping
For the better gender, one of the most important parts of any vacation or any big trip is the shopping. There is shopping in preparation for the trip, and shopping during the trip. Like any good woman, no amount of back pain can stop Lori from shopping for a trip like the one we have planned.

Lori and Shelby have gone shopping several times for our upcoming trip. There are so many things to buy. Karl is worried about the size and weight of the suitcases. Vayden alone requires quite a bit of equipment and paraphernalia. We are going to have quite a few suitcases. We have already purchased several new monster suitcases. Shelby got a new suitcase as an early birthday present because she just couldn’t shove any more stuff in the one she has currently.

Karl has also gone shopping with Lori. In fact he actually endured the marathon . . . the bar exam of shopping . . . the pinnacle of female shopping. Karl dared to shop with Lori for a new pair of jeans. For those of you who don’t already know this, it is incredibly dangerous for any man let alone a husband to help his wife find a new pair of jeans. A husband who braves to assist in the quest for the elusive perfect pair of jeans must tread carefully when asked to
participate and comment in such a process. For a husband who does not want to upset or offend his wife, it is like walking a tight rope without a net. One reckless or loose comment, one unprepared or un-thought out answer to a question and it is all over. Karl pulled almost every pair of jeans in the entire department store and handed them to Lori whose dressing room became filled with stacks and piles of jeans.

Here is a tip for all males attempting to participate in this process. If and when the perfect pair of jeans is discovered, do not even look at or comment on the price. Women’s jeans are ridiculous to begin with. The mind set should be, if your wife has actually found a pair of jeans that she is happy with, no price is too much to pay to end the ordeal and make your wife happy.

Karl also made the mistake of going with Lori several times shopping for a new bathing suit also. Now this should never be attempted by any male, at any time, under any circumstance. If you want to remain happily married . . . do NOT . . . I repeat . . . DO NOT attempt to go shopping for a bathing suit with your wife. It can only end badly.

Very Vayden
We took Vayden to her first baseball game yesterday. She loved it. The crowd, the sights, sounds everything. Chase field has a baby section where little kids can crawl around on some baseball related toys and artificial grass. She loves other little kids. Lori made her a black head band with a red flower to match Vayden’s Diamondback shirt. She was probably the cutest fan there, and at least 50 people told us as much. As we were walking along the tiers Vayden started waving to people and discovered that they would wave back. The little girl loves the attention and she sure seems to get a lot of it. She waved and smiled at everyone. Vayden was fascinated by everybody cheering and clapping together. Vayden really seems to enjoy being out with people and having new sights and sounds to experience. You can see her little mind working. She observed that people were yelling, so she found that she also liked using her voice to yell. There were several fans that turned around laughing to see where that loud little voice was coming from. Vayden can be incredibly loud for such a little girl.



Sooooo Shelby
We have enjoyed having Shelby with us. We have missed her. Also with Lori unable to do a lot of things because of her back, Shelby has been a huge help with Vayden. It is a good thing Shelby has been here.

It is hard to talk about Shelby without saying a few words about Shelby and the love of her life. For those of you who don’t already know, Shelby is in a very, very serious and intense relationship with her cell phone. Medically speaking, Shelby and her phone are conjoined twins. We have sought several medical opinions as to whether separation surgery can be performed and it looks like the procedure might prove fatal. The funny thing about Shelby and her cell phone, is that she never talks on it.

When Alexander Graham Bell invented the ability for human beings to actually have a real time conversation on a telephone, I bet he could not have foreseen that someday modern teenagers would revert back to the equivalent of telegrams and never even attempt to use their phones to speak.

You will never here Shelby taking on her phone or hear Shelby’s voice. Sometimes you may forget that she is even in the room. You will only hear the distinctive slap of her flip phone closing. You won’t even be able to catch a glimpse of her thumbs moving across her key board because it is too fast for the naked eye. Only the slap of that phone over and over again throughout the day will remind you that Shelby is nearby.

In regards to studies done on teenagers and texting, some experts predict that teenagers will soon lose the ability to speak all together. Ahhh, we can only hope! Do we dare dream of such a world? Imagine modern day parents never having to hear the barrages of negativity, the repetitive complaints of unfairness and incessant criticism of our archaic parental ideals. Teenagers texting their grievances until their fingers bleed and parents just deleting those texts with peaceful smiles across their content faces. “And the lion shall lay down with the lamb.”

Lori actually communicates with Shelby by text all the time. What is amazing about that fact, is that they are in the same house, and often in the same room at the time. Karl has witnessed them texting each other while driving in the same car.

Now texting can have some benefits. Lori and Shelby have been at odds several times during her visit. Shelby refuses to talk to her mother and they actually fight on the phone texting each other back and forth. Karl, Christian and Vayden enjoy driving peacefully down the road in complete silence while Shelby and Lori fight on the phone texting away at each other. No screaming, no name calling, just the occasional sound of a phone flipping closed. Now that is technological progress at its best.

Family Stories

Adding Emphasis to her Daddy’s Lesson
The girls found this story hilarious, while Karl does not. Last week in church, Karl had to teach the lesson in Sunday School. Lori and Shelby sat in the front row with Vayden. Vayden doesn’t much like to hold still anymore if she is conscious. This is especially true if she is in a new environment where there are things to touch and explore. While Karl was teaching in the front of the class, Vayden crawled up towards her Dad and pulled herself up on a chair that was against the front wall. With her little butt facing the small crowd she let loose a very audible fart. Lori and Shelby struggled not to laugh and Karl managed to pretend like didn’t just happen.