11/26/06

Hey Babs,

This is going to be shorter than normal because I just sent you a 24-25 page love note that would have taken you your whole hour just to speed read through online. I wanted you to digest it slowly as you took the hard copy and read through it when it was convenient. You have an 11-12 page weekly letter recapping all of the Thanksgiving festivities as well as a full Turkey Bowl recap. Then you have a 13-14 page Discourse on Leadership as I promised you a weeks ago. I had a 4 day weekend, so I busted it out over a couple of days this weekend. It’s Sunday at 2:19 PM right now. I’m just sitting down to watch some Patriots/Bears football. This is going to be a good game. I’m up by 3 pts. Now in my fantasy game and feeling really good about my chances of winning this week. I’ll update you on that before this is done. I don’t have a ton to write about since I filled up 11-12 pages already. I still wanted you to get an e-mail from me though and not be left wondering what happened.

Dad and I went to Lowes yesterday and picked up a few things. I needed his help hanging my Rain Gutter. We had some big winds around Thanksgiving and they ripped my cheapo rain gutter off of my house. Well, not completely off, the whole front side gutter was hanging by a few nails on the East side of my house, but ¾ of it was dangling out there and making my house look super ghetto. So we went and got some industrial strength brackets that mount inside the gutter and then a metal strip that you nail down right into your roof. It’s actually so sturdy now, that if you fell off my roof and grabbed onto the gutter for dear life, you could rest assured that your hand strength would give out and let you fall to your death before my rain gutter would. While we were up there, we noticed just how haggard my shingles are. I should have re-done that roof a couple of years ago. I definitely have to do it this spring when I get some good weather. We had to walk around and caulk up a ton of exposed nails and some wide open cracks and valleys in the singles. It’s a miracle that I don’t have more water damage to my ceiling in my house. I had to go over to their house yesterday anyway to print off your letters because my printer is still out of ink. I just need to go get some cartridges at the office depot. I have a $25 gift card for there, so I just need to go do it. While I was printing those, Mom wanted a copy of the leadership epistle, so Mom and Dad have a copy of it too. I don’t know if they read it yet. John wanted to take a look-see too but said he started reading it and it was too deep and he wasn’t in a frame of mind to retain all the information, so he put it down for now. I told him to wait till he had a significant thanksgiving dinner blockage and knew he would be spending some quality time on the throne to tackle it. So I think he might have put it in on his turlet until he has an opportune moment. So I don’t have any feedback yet, but it was targeted toward you anyway and not really meant for other peeps. So we’ll see what you think.

Today in church, Chad Johnson gave his farewell. He gave a good talk. He went a little bit off the norm with some of the stuff he was talking about, but for the most part, it was a good talk, good enthusiasm, good speaking skills. He’ll be a good missionary. The chapel was packed. We got their a little late and ended up having to sit in the very back row of the last overflow. He joked that even though he was the last to go from all his friends, it’s OK, because it was all girls at his farewell. After Sacrament, we went to Sunday school where I was setting up chairs for my class. John Lemmon, one of my two boys in the class was in there with me and sat down. He leaned back against the curtain where his little brother was leaning against it too. His brother felt him come up against the curtain and hurried and moved I guess because John went down hard. He instantly went down hard and started panicking in pain. I he could hardly yell, but started saying My fingers, My fingers. I liked down and his pointer and middle fingers from both hands were jammed in between the metal bars of the chair on both sides. I had to lift up his hips just to get his weight off the chair. He was stuck. He couldn’t even move. If I wasn’t in there, he would have been stuck in there crying from pain until someone found him. So I lifted him up, we got the chair to finally let loose and his fingers were all crooked and bloody. It was sick man! So I told him to go wash it off and to look at it. I guess they were OK, they didn’t break, but it took his skin off of all 4 fingers pretty deep. He came back from his house with his dad and they were all bleeding through the bandages. Looked pretty nasty!! I missed the replay here on the game, but Junior Seau just broke his arm and they had a good angle on it. This game has been really physical. I’m chatting with Austin online too. A commercial for a new Xbox 360 game was just on where you can get this awesome game of the creepy looking King guy, you know? Riding bumper cars, pocket bikes (motor bikes), and some other cool stuff and he just rams into things and wrecks stuff. It’s like Burnout or something where you try to jack stuff up and hurt the king. They say, the Kings pain is your gain or something like that. Then you can also be those weird red or white chickens they do, you know? I think it looks awesome. It’s only $3.99 too if you go buy a meal there, so I told Austin we’d go and get it and play it.

I just got home from Rick and Monica’s new house up in Kaysville. It’s only an hour of travel each way. So we won’t be visiting them up there again anytime soon.

So what did you do for Thanksgiving? Tell me all about it. What is the plan for Christmas? What are you doing that day and when are you calling home? We will plan our day around the call so we can be at Ma’s and Pa’s to talk to you.

Well, I have the easy win this week. I’ll send you updates in standings next week. I hope things are going well, and that you had a good T-day. Write back soon. Look forward to your mail on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Love ya and miss ya,

Trav