tragedy

a rare submittal by Dave:

It's been over 2 full days since the shooting in Tucson that resulted in 6 deaths, including a 9-year-old girl, and 13 injuries, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords who currently is in critical condition. Lots has been said and written about the event and, not counting talk radio, it's mostly been informative and even uplifting.

I wanted to add my 2 cents, that won't make national or even local news, but that I found very interesting. I have talked with numerous people, mostly at church, who have some connection with the event. The most direct connection is an active church member whose son was there at the scene, and ducked not long before one of the bullets hit very close to him. Additional connections:

• a man who goes every Tuesday to that very Safeway (where the shooting occurred) because the store donates food that he passes out to over 30 people in rural Marana.


• a man and woman who might have been there at that time, except that they decided to do some errands south of the store first.


• a man who had shopped there just the day before.


• a woman (not a member of our church - i talked to her on a shuttle ride home from dropping off my car at the Toyota service dept.) who was eating lunch just across the street at the time of the shooting.


• a man (my next door neighbor, who also is a member of our church) who was a classmate of one of those killed - Gabe Zimmerman, the community outreach director for Rep. Giffords.

I might also add that I had the pleasure of meeting Rep. Giffords about a year and a half ago, at the Marana Community Food Bank (which our church founded, and which is right next door to it). She was there for a friendly competition with Mayor Ed Honea, seeing how much food they and their staff could collect. Pallets of food were trucked in by both parties, and weighed. I can't remember the totals - but with smiles and good-natured ribbing all the way around, Rep. Giffords won.

It struck me, as I have heard from all these people in the last 48 hours, how small our community and world really is. Yes, that Safeway is in Tucson, but it's at least 10 miles from my home, and even further than that from our church. And it's not like our church has thousands of members so that, naturally, there would be all these connections. We are bound together in tremendous ways, and that which we share is made evident in events such as the one here in Tucson.

Events such as this also make me grateful for each day. We really don't know the time or place of our passing. We tend to live as our days on earth won't end or change much, but that's not true, is it? I am reminded once again to love God, my wife, my kids, my family and friends, and even my enemies in more significant ways.

If you wish to read some well-said thoughts, each with a different twist, here are two:

• from our church's General Minister and President, Sharon Watkins - http://bit.ly/eUBrRj
• from my next door neighbor, Matt Clark - http://matthewdclarkaz.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/shooting/

blessings to you.

Rare Peace

Here are Reese and Didi in a Rare moment of quietude. They are easing into the morning with little bit of Kipper cartoons.

We are all excited about the new overpass

On November 19th, there will be a new freeway on/offramp added to I-10 for Twin Peaks Road. This road runs right through our neighborhood, and while that may sound like a bad thing, we are very excited for this to happen. Until now, we have had to go about 4 miles to get to the nearest freeway ramp which is sometimes a real inconvenience. Now, we will have one about a quarter of a mile away. There was a dedication for the ramp held last Saturday and they opened it for people to walk and bike on. So we got all the bikes ready and rode to it. It felt very strange riding down the middle of the road and I had this anxiety the whole time that we were going to get hit by a car. Reese of course, had no anxiety and loved walking the lines in the road like a balance beam. The train track now runs under the Twin Peaks overpass and we have been back since to stand on the bridge and look down over the train as it passes underneath. It's all very exciting!

Isn't Halloween just one day?

Halloween ended up being a weeklong affair at our house this year. First we had our playgroup Halloween party. We made trick-or-treat bags, did a ghost bean bag toss, scooped "eyeballs" out of a pumpkin, and ate cheese pumpkin rollups and bread bones! The kids all looked so cute in their costumes - especially as they came whizing down the slide in our yard!

Next came pumpkin carving and painting. Tate and Heidi got Reese and Noah ceramic pumkins with their names in the teeth for them to paint. And Noah carved an awesome skeleton hand into his pumkin this year using his wood carving knowledge and tools.Then we went to a party at My Gym. A place where Reese goes to play and climb once a week. They had even set up a little "haunted house" for the kids. She had a blast there and was excited to show her dad and brother all the things she can do there.

The next day we went to a party at a friend of Noah's. While Noah ran and ate lots of candy with his buddies, Reese directed Dave and I around - we spent time flapping our arms and "bok"ing like chickens and scratched in the dirt with sticks.
Finally came Halloween and we all dressed up and went trick-or-treating. Nobody knew who Reese, Dave and I were, so we just let people think we were whatever they guessed - "Are you veggietales?" yes, "Are you those birds from that Pixar short film?" yes, etc. Just for the record, we were Peep, Chirp and Quack from the cartoon series Peep and the Big Wide World.Noah was the downtrodden ninja who's mother made him get his picture taken.First we went early with Reese and her friend Ruby and then later I took Noah with his friend Sam. We all had chili and donuts in between rounds of trick-or-treating. Everyone ended up getting tons of candy, of course. I wasn't sure how Reese would do, but she really got into it. She carried her bag herself and knocked on doors herself. And being as social as she is, when the doors opened, she took that as an invitation to come right in.

"Let's just say your child will need a medical waiver..."

This was the message from one of Noah's friend's mom. It came also with "Save the date for a birthday party. More details to come"

What torture (for me and Noah) because everyday after that, all I heard was, "Have you heard anything else about the party?" Finally, the invitation arrived and Noah's friend was having a scuba diving birthday bash!

Here he is all suited up. Next step - the ocean!

Agua Linda Farm

To try to make it feel more like fall (since the weather is no help), we planned a day at the farm with our playgroup. There were 11 children and we had a blast. First we picked pumpkins in the pumpkin patch.

Then we checked out the ponies and animals in the petting zoo.

We ran through the hay bale maze. Ringing the bell at he end was the best part.

We spent alot of time climbing the hay bale mountain.

And played in the tire swing after our picnic lunch.

By the time we took the tractor ride around the farm, I think I was beginning to feel like the fall was finally here. It was a very successful trip to the farm!

Island Park adventure

In october, we took a trip to Island Park, Idaho for a family reunion of sorts. My grandmother generously rented a gorgeous cabin in the woods where we met up with several of my aunts, uncles, cousins and their children - 25 in all! We spent one afternoon in Yellowstone where we saw buffalo, moose and elk and the famous geyser. The kids all got along so well and had an awesome time doing crafts and playing together. Reese could have been happy spending the whole weekend outside digging in the dirt and playing with the rocks and sticks. We all had a wonderful time, until my 83 year old grandmother was drove a 4-wheeler into a rut and flipped it over. She ended up with a punctured lung and many, many rib fractures! She's a very tough woman and came home from the hospital and is doing much better, thankfully. Hopefully, she has learned that her days of operating heavy machinery are over, but somehow, knowing her, I doubt it! And of course, I did not take many pictures. And, as usual, you would never know Noah was with us because he won't let any pictures be taken of him!

Reese still remembers seeing the buffalo and how it was rolling around in the dirt.