Bishoping (Bishopping?)

Today Jim was sustained and set apart as the bishop of the Oceanside 4th Ward.  Jimmy Silverstein (relatively new in the ward) and Derrick Karner are his counselors.  It's a young crew; at 41, Jim is the oldest of the bunch.  The outgoing bishop, Bishop Shirley, would have hit his five-year mark in February.  His departure from the bishopric was hastened as follows:  RQ Shupe has been serving as the second counselor in the stake presidency but is leaving next month for a mission in Africa.  Bishop Shirley was called to take his place in the stake presidency.  Jim was called to replace Bishop Shirley. 

We met with the stake president about a week and a half ago.  Jim and I theorized beforehand about what the call might be, but we didn't discuss the possibility of his being the bishop of our ward.  When President Pynes told me the calling they had prayed about and had had confirmed that they should extend to Jim was that of bishop of the Oceanside 4th Ward, I said, "Seriously?  Seriously?"  I repeated it enough, and fervently enough, that President Pynes felt compelled to say, "Yes, I'm serious." 

Jim asked his friend Pablo (Paul Peters) to ordain him to the office of high priest.  Pablo came to our building after sacrament meeting and gave Jim a nice blessing.  He seemed to feel humbled by Jim's invitation to perform the ordination and was very sweet.  He told me afterward that Jim was the person he looked up to when they were in the Del Mar Fourth Branch together because Jim was always so solid.

People expected me to be emotional today, but I wasn't - maybe because I don't know what to expect.  Jim is taking it all in stride and doesn't want a big deal made of it.  It's just a calling, and everybody has a calling, he says.  But it carries a lot of responsibility and will require a lot of time.  I'm grateful for his willingness to serve and have already seen blessings in our family because of the call. 

Pocatello Part 2 - Night Before, Marathon, and Temple Square

Two weeks before the marathon, we had what was supposed to be our last supper with Sam and Tatum before their big move to Shanghai.  (Sam will be working there for three years until Shanghai Disneyland opens.)  We found out that they were going to be in Idaho visiting Sam's family the weekend of the race.  Jim asked Sam if he wanted to run the marathon with him.  Sam said, "Yeah, I think maybe I do."  He went on a five-mile run a day or two later and felt pretty good, so he registered.  So without any training except a handful of runs over the two-week period before the race, and with an 11-miler being his longest pre-race run, Sam joined Jim in the marathon.  I loved that he did that.  It seemed like something Jim or I would do. 

 

So Friday evening, after Bear World and Idaho Falls, we hurried back to our hotel to meet Sam and Tatum and their kids, who were driving up from Provo.  We snuck in a quick swim in the pool before the official pasta dinner. 

 

 

Carbo loading:

 

 

Actually Dolly was not particularly interested in eating that night and started losing it pretty quickly.  I tried to take a team photo, but she did not cooperate: 

 

Tess, Sam, Tatum, Rue (on Tatum's lap), Jim, Dolly

 

There was a speaker at the dinner - a super marathoner who hasn't let a brain tumor slow him down and has run marathons pushing his daughter in a stroller.  I had to leave shortly into his talk to take Dolly back to our room and get her to bed in the tub. 

 

Jim arose about 4:45 Saturday morning.  This is my only pre-race shot of him, eating an orange:

This year's race shirts were not an ideal color.

Sam and Tatum stayed the night at Sam's parents' house in Rexburg.  Sam met Jim in the lobby of our hotel so they could ride the bus to the starting point together.  They chatted up the guest speaker (from the pasta dinner) in the lobby and sat next to him on the bus. 

Jim decided a couple months ago to give up on qualifying for the Boston marathon, and he eased up a bit on his training once time was no longer a concern.  His revised goal was to finish in 3 hours 45 minutes.  We figured out about when he would be at the three spots recommended for spectators.  I was nervous about finding each spot and getting there in time.  I had to wake Dolly (see photo of her dead asleep in Part 1 post), and we rushed down to the first spectator spot around mile 15.  As we hurried to the car, Dolly said, "Buh-bye, Snort!" to this thing, which was parked next to us:

 

(In Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman, the baby bird sees a "big thing" like this.  He asks if the big thing is his mother.  The big thing says, "Snort!"  The baby bird says, "Oh, no!  You are not my mother.  You are a scary Snort!"  So now Dolly calls these types of vehicles "Snorts.")

 

We found the first spectator spot without a problem and in plenty of time.  Jim came along right on schedule.  I coached Dolly to cheer, "Go, Daddy!"  When the time came, however, she was totally mute, even when Jim stopped and talked to us.  After he ran on, Dolly and I drove north a few miles and parked near a high school to watch for him again.  Tatum met us there.  I started getting worried that we hadn't gotten there quickly enough and that Jim had already passed.  Turns out he had slowed down to go up a big hill, and we got to see him again after all. 

 

Then it was on to the finish line.  As we waited, Dolly kept busy by dropping her bag of Goldfish on the ground and then eating all the crackers off the road.  Jim looked great coming down the final stretch.  We (I) cheered vigorously as he went by.  This was maybe 75 feet before the finish line:

 

He totally nailed it, finishing in under 3 hours 43 minutes (an average of about 8 1/2-minute miles).  Dolly gave him good loves:

We chatted for a bit here . . .

. . . and then staked out a place near the finish line to watch for Samuelson.  He gave some high fives as he went by:

We couldn't believe how well Sam did without training.  He was aiming for 12-minute miles.  He finished in 4 hours 20 minutes (an average of about 9 minutes 50 seconds per mile) and wasn't even hurt afterward.  We were incredibly proud of our runners:

The dark spots on Jim's shirt are grease stains from the Vaseline he put on his sensitive
areas to prevent chafing.  Just one of the unpleasant aspects of marathon running.

Family phote:

While the boys went to get their free grub, Tatum and I tried to make Ever and Rue love each other.  Ever gave Rue's back some lengthy hugs, but I didn't get very good pictures:

 

Sam saw a couple of guys he knew from high school.  They are apparently super-obsessed with running (like they do races every weekend) and were all pumped to qualify for the Boston this time.  One of them had two kids in t-shirts that said "Boston or Bust -  3:10."  (3:10 was his qualifying time.)  He missed that qualifying time by 15 minutes; the other guy missed it by four minutes.  It was really sad.  I was so glad Jim wasn't trying to qualify this time around because it turns a fun experience into a totally disappointing one. 

 

Sam and Tatum had to head back to Rexburg to spend time with family, so we drove straight back to Salt Lake, where we were staying for the night.  We weren't too far from SLC when we smelled a pooper.  Jim stopped at a gas station, and I got Dolly out to change her.  I didn't notice it at first.  Then I felt it.  A large amount of poop on my right arm, which was holding Dolly.  Poop on my right leg, as well as my shorts and unders.  Poop on my left arm.  It was really bad.  I set Dolly down barefoot on the gas station ground, and I stood frozen until Jim got the worst of it off me with baby wipes.  We got Dolly, the car seat, and her books cleaned up as well as we could.  Her clothes and most of the books didn't make it, which was really sad.  When we checked into one of the fanciest hotels we've ever stayed in, Jim was unshowered/unchanged since the marathon.  Dolly was in a diaper only.  I wasn't looking so hot myself.  We may have been the trashiest guests they've ever had. 

 

Showers all around were the first order of business.  While we waited for Jim to finish, Dolly posed with her Goldfish:

 

 

Nice room, eh?  The bathroom was huge.  Could've fit several cribs in there.  No bathtub bed necessary for Dolly at this place.

 

We decided to go to a fancy pizza place for dinner because Dolly's generally a big fan of pizza.  We got a margherita pizza, and she refused to eat it.  It had a different flavor than she's used to and had that burned-on-purpose syndrome.  So that was sad.  We got her some fast food after we finished at the pizza place. 

 

After dinner we walked around Temple Square.  Dolly loves making Jim run and then running after him.  Poor Jim, who was rather achy, played along and was rewarded with a sweet hug when she caught him:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We parked at City Creek Center and had to take this gigantic set of stairs to get back down into the mall from Temple Square.  I had a good laugh at Jim's expense.  He was in so much pain:

 

 

I would've liked to spend more time at Temple Square, but it was getting late for the wee one. 

 

We flew out the next morning.  Had breakfast at the airport, and returned to a heat wave in CA. 

This was such a fun little family vacation.  Jim wants to run more marathons, so maybe we'll have more getaways like this. 

 

Postscript / confession time: 

 

While we waited for the shuttle to our car, Dolly wanted to get in her car seat.  Does she look too big? 

 

 

She outgrew this infant car seat many months ago.  I got a new seat for my car, but Jim kept using this seat in his car.  This trip made clear how incredibly unsafe it was.  The shoulder straps were way below her shoulders.  Her head was above the top of the car seat and rested against the hard top.  To make matters worse, the seatbelt in the rental car wouldn't lock, and we didn't take the little doohickey you're supposed to use for that.  So at one point, Dolly was kind of crying out for us.  We turned around and saw that her seat had completely tipped over.  We are possibly the most negligent parents ever.  I am so glad we didn't have an accident!  I did some research and bought another car seat as soon as we got home.  Dolly's safe now. 

Pocatello Part 1 - Grandma and Bear World

On Jim's 41st birthday (Wednesday, August 28), we left for Pocatello via Salt Lake City for a family vacation centered around the Pocatello marathon on Saturday.  I was trying to pack that morning, and it was hard to be productive with a Dolly.  She needs to be busy and loves "helping," so I finally started giving her the clothes I was pulling out to pack for her and asked her to take them into Mommy and Daddy's room.  She'd run down the hall and then return, and I'd give her something else.  When she'd transported all of her stuff, we went into Jim and my room, and I found that she'd put everything under our bed almost in piles.  I told her to smile next to her work, which to her means put your hands on your cheeks:

Dolly did really well on the plane, although I felt like two hours was about the max we could handle.  (Our trip to D.C. in November concerns me.)  We stopped at Burger King for food and then headed to our hotel near the Salt Lake airport, the Baymont Inn and Suites.  It was kind of old and junky and dark and definitely over-priced.  There was no soap in our room, and it took the front-desk guy a really long time to find some.  It also took him an extremely long time to bring in Dolly's pack n' play, which was broken.  We struggled forever to put it up, but one of the sides wouldn't lock.  We finally crammed it in the bathroom and hoped it wouldn't collapse.  We didn't get her down until 10:00, but she went right to sleep. 

Dolly didn't wake up until 8:30 Thursday morning, so we hit the continental breakfast at the hotel right before it closed and then went to Grandma's place at the Seville.  She has shrunk so much in these last several years, and her hearing seems to be going.  She didn't seem nearly as talkative as she's always been, but she's still funny.  It was fun for her to see Ever.  We hung out and then went down to the dining room for lunch.  Toward the end of the meal, I let Dolly down from her high chair.  She was sticking close to our table, but at one point this old lady at the next table yelled at me to get her out of the way because the server was going to trip over her.  I looked back, and Dolly was right behind my chair, while the server was about 30 feet away.  Old people are crazy. 

To and from lunch, Normie gave Dolly a ride on her walker.  I told Dolly to smile, and she clapped her hands to her face and almost fell, frightening Normie:

Undeterred, I kept asking her to smile:

It was really nice to visit Normie, and I'm looking forward to seeing her again at the end of November when we go for Cornyee's Utah reception.

After saying goodbye to Normie, we drove to Pocatello.  It was a lot prettier than I remembered.  We saw a sign for Café Rio and went straight there, where we ran into an old friend from L.A., John Meurer.  He and his (relatively new) wife and a couple of nephews just happened to stop there for grub on their way to Yellowstone, where they were going backpacking.  It was fun to see John and meet his wife. 

Dolly absolutely refused to look at the camera.  That's John on the right.

 

We stayed at the Clarion Inn in Pocatello, which was the host hotel for the marathoners. 

Jim went for a run at the fitness center while Dolly and I got cleaned up.  The Clarion was a vast improvement over the Baymont.  The vanity, however, was separate from the bathroom, which meant that the bathroom was too small for Dolly's crib.  We smushed the crib mattress into the bathtub, and she slept like this:

Picture taken Saturday morning at 7:15 a.m., after Dolly had been asleep for
12 hours.  She was practically unwakeable. 

Friday morning we cruised Old Town Pocatello looking (unsuccessfully) for a restaurant and eventually ended up at Jumbo's Café (not in Old Town).  We had delicious french toast, among other things.  In the car this whole trip, Dolly wanted all her books with her in her car seat.  She perused them or just sat with them between her legs.

Dolly and I outside Jumbo's Café:

 

When we left the restaurant, the longest train in the world went by on the nearby train tracks.  We watched it forever.  Couldn't have left anyway, since it was blocking traffic.

Then we headed to Bear World, which is just south of Rexburg.  Dolly fell asleep on the drive.  I looked back and saw she had stuck a sticker on the middle of her forehead and still had all her books in her chair. 

Bear World has a fenced-off area you drive through to see wildlife.  The bears get their own section.  Dolly rode with me in the front so she could see the animals:

We saw deer:

(It rained a bit as we drove through, and we weren't supposed to roll down our windows.  We broke the rule for the clear pictures.)

Elk:

Rare white elk sitting under the tree:

Bison:

There were tons of bears, and some of them came right up to the car.  I took lots of pictures:

 

 

We passed a moose or something on our way out:

 

Jim let Dolly drive from the wildlife area to the parking lot.  She loved it and got upset when he tried to help steer:

 

Bear World also features a petting zoo and a handful of rides.  Before the petting zoo, there was a room filled with dead things or coats thereof.  Jim pet the grizzly fur: 

 

I decided I don't want any run-ins with wolves.  This one was a big fella:

In the petting zoo, we saw ducks:

We all (even yours truly) took turns touching this fat pig:

There were deer:

Again, Dolly was brave:

We saw this rooster lying against the fence and thought for sure he was dead until we saw his eye move:

There were a couple of cute midget goats:

We took a family photo in the cut-out sign:

There were lots of fish and ducks in a little river (pond?) that Dolly tried to climb through the railing to get in:

 

Jim discovered that while he doesn't quite measure up to a grizzly, he is a full six feet tall:

There were a couple of bears in small enclosures by the petting zoo/amusement park area:

I don't understand how the bears survive such hot weather with all that fur.

Dolly was able to ride all of the little rides as long as she was accompanied by a big person.  First up were the giant spinning bears, which Dolly thoroughly enjoyed but which made Jim feel sick:

Then there was a little train:

Dolly really wanted to ride the little roller coaster.  She watched and pointed from the sidelines:

We were worried it would freak her out, but she absolutely loved it and kept asking for more:

Last were these cars that went up and down as they spun around:

We finally pulled Dolly away from the place where all her dreams come true and drove back to Idaho Falls.  Idaho has fun water tanks:

We picked up some food at a grocery store and picnicked by the river across from the temple.  Dolly went to town on the fruit:

Below is my all-time favorite picture of Jim.  How weird is his incredibly-in-need-of-a-cut hair?

Nice spot for a picnic:

Then we headed back to the hotel in Pocatello.  To be continued . . .