Super Bowl Fun - from Kim

Hi,

I just thought I'd share some of our photos from this weekend with you.
We had great fun with everyone, it didn't seem to be as well organized this time we're not sure why . . . Katie heard some rumors from a TSA guy at the airport who had worked security at the game. The stadium in Tampa is smaller than the one in Detroit and it was crowded, at one point while we were trying to get to our seats we had to walk through a narrow spot because they had set up a temporary wall to protect something (a press box??) and there was a great-many-lot of people trying to get through, it was a little scary, once we got so far and realized that we were caught in this mass of humanity trying to squeeze through a cattle gate. I started thinking about the man killed at the Wal-Mart store in the stampede of 'Christmas' shoppers. One guy came up behind us and said. "Excuse me, I have to get through". I just looked at him and said, "You're joking, right?". I could only move where the crowd moved.
The Cardinal fans and the Steeler fans that we came across were great, all of the razzing that I came subjected to was in good fun, all though I'm sure someone somewhere was being a jerk. But my impressions in general were good of all the folks who were there.
Before getting inside the stadium we walked a gauntlet of really obsessive 'Born Again' types, and on our way out too. Tamsyn, Katie and I were together when we were leaving and the 'very nice christian man' with the bull horn stated that women should be at home in the kitchen washing dishes, and having babies (not all at the same time I hope) and not at football games. The Steeler fan in front of us yelled out, "Yeah, that's what I'm talking about!" I looked at him and said, "Good thing your wife isn't here". His friend, says, "Oh don't mind him . . . he's a mormon." "So are we", I replied. . . . silence . . . then I said "You were kidding, but we weren't." I don't know if that was good or bad. There is a definite internal (and possibly eternal) struggle that comes with this opportunity of Chris', regarding going to games on Sunday. We try to go to the Monday and Thursday games and keep Sunday to a minimum, it's hard, we apologize.
Ed, and I, Ryan, Aaron, Cathy and Frank all had seats together at about the 25 yard line, we sat next to the Keisel family on one side and James Harrison's brother was on my left, Ed was on my right, I was a little squished. You should have heard James' brother when he made his run with the interception, I think he was pretty incredulous. He started out fairly soft and got to a crescendo. "Go . . . go . . . go baby brother . . . go!" That was so fun . . . I didn't see the interception because I had my eyes closed, I thought the Cardinals were going to score and I didn't want to see it.
Katie, Tamsyn, Shaun, Cameron, Jordan and Zach were sitting together in the end zone so they got to see James come running towards them. Jaimee and the two boys were on the 50 yard line (usually we get seats together but with the Super Bowl it works out different). Right in front of Jaimee were the guys who play Dwight and Kevin on the office. Near by was Hayden Panitierre (or whatever), the Baldwins brothers and Ashton Kutcher was in a nearby box seat wearing a straw hat. Anyway pretty fun.
At the end of the game at the Super Bowl in Detroit Chris was able to come to where we were sitting and point us out and the security guards let us climb over on to the field, they even helped us. This time it was crazy. They wouldn't let anyone climb over (well . . . some did), which is probably for liability reasons. They forced us to go to the stairs, people were pushing. Santonio Holmes' mother was right behind me with his three children trying to get them to him. She had the youngest a girl and there were two boys maybe about 7 and 5 years old. The 5 year old ended up by Ed and the 7 year old was with me, I didn't want to let him go because I knew who he belonged to (not because of who his dad is . . . but because I knew . . . well do you know what I mean?) Anyway Santonio came up to the wall got his daughter, then we were able to get the other two down to him. That kid was solid and at first his jacket was caught on something and it was crowded but I finally got him up and told him to lift his legs over the rail and sit down. Then his dad came and I started to lift him down, some one next to me helped, I'm sure they thought I might drop him but I wouldn't have. Ed and I and Cathy and Frank were all separated by the crush of people (Aaron and Ryan had jumped). When I finally got to the stairs, I could see Chris reach for Cathy and grab her hand then a tug of war ensued between Chris and a security guard . . . geesh. Where was the respect? Chris won but . . . what the heck. Poor Cathy. Katie and Tamsyn were there too which I was glad of except that Katie was really getting squished around, one guard would say that we could go down the stairs with our Steeler family passes and then another would say, no you have to have a security pass. One by one Chris got all of us down except for Ed . . . he was trying to come but he was being stopped . . . you should have seen the look on Chris' face! He started after the guy but luckily another security guard was observant and took control and got Ed down. Once we were on the field it was fine and calm. Crazy, crazy, crazy.
Anyway the RUMOR, that Katie overheard was that there had been a bomb threat at half-time and not all of the security force was aware of it and that's why it was so disorganized. She spoke to the guy to make sure she had heard him correctly. Still it could just be nothing more than a RUMOR.
All in all it was very exciting.
The people in Tampa (generally speaking) seem to really like honking their horns at the slightest provocation (I mean people honk at Ed all the time, but this was really crazy) and generally speaking the people working as clerks are very impatient with their customers. We met one guy that was really friendly at a Nestle Toll House Cookie Store (maybe it's the cookies that make him nice) but we would guess that he was born in India and had been raised in Britain . . . great accent!

Love you!

Kim

Tamsyn also has some fun insights and pictures here.

Holiday

What if there is no tomorrow?
There wasn't one today. - Phil Connors

Here's One For You

I met with a guy last night whose rent the Church paid in Jan and is paying again in Feb. He left mad at me because he doesn't like MY attitude.

I could write a book. But, I think propriety dictates that I shouldn't.

Yay Salsa!

Sister Elder

Christmas 2008

Lane successfully negotiated the stringent and rigorous interview process posed by her Bishop/Dad and was baptized in July. After years of competing against the two big girls for bandwidth in the household, she is now enjoying a fairly empty nest. She misses her sisters. But, seems to enjoy our undivided attention and also seems to demand less of it. When it comes to bikes, our kids are slow learners. But, Lane learned to ride a bike this year after putting her mind to it for a couple of days. She is looking forward to growing big enough to go on serious rides on the tandem with daddy. If she had her way she would spend all of her free time watching the Spongebob channel.

Jensen successfully completed 4 years of High School and 2 years of Junior College in the last 3 years. So we gave her a semester off for a huge Lollapolooza. Now she has her nose at the BYU grindstone. We were proud of her when she graduated from High School. Unfortunately, the biggest attraction at the event was David Archuleta in the audience. Each of us has at one time or another had trouble negotiating the entrance to the garage with the sideview mirrors on the car. Jensen is the latest to score a casualty in this game and as a result received a nice new OEM Ford Explorer mirror as a Christmas present this year.

While finishing up a 3 year plus stint working at Laser Quest and also teaching Kung Fu at a local private school, Ailsa successfully completed her Bachelor's degree at the University of Utah in English and launched into the LDS Mission life. She entered the MTC early in January and is going to study Spanish for two months and then share the Gospel in the Houston, Texas Mission. She is excited to be going to some place warm and that features yummy Tex/Mex food. Todd had a good number of vacation days to use at the end of the year (after Ailsa finished College and before she began her mission.) So, we spent A LOT of time together as a family STAYcationing at Christmas time, eating, watching movies, enjoying one another, taking a long drink before crossing the desert. We truly miss Ailsa. But, know she is doing a great thing. She has suspended writing for the interim. But, has several books completed waiting for an adoring audience. We recently learned that her uncle Wade met Stephanie Meyer a couple of years ago at some book show thingy in Arizona. He looked at her Twilight offering and soundly pronounced that it would never go anywhere. We are hoping he will make a similar pronouncement about one of Ailsa's works.

Lenore loves to troll the “Interwebs” and pick fights with and educate the unsuspecting liberals or anti LDS she runs into. She has taken Elder Ballard's admonition to "spread the Gospel" via the internet a little too much to heart. We seriously think she wanted another voting fiasco in Florida to provide hours of political entertainment just like in 2000. She has exhausted the local library's supply of books on polygamy and is working on putting together a “Women of Colorado City” calendar to bring in some additional income. She and Ailsa went to a Glenn Beck show a year ago and managed to get Ailsa a couple of dates with the son of a local Talk Radio personality. She loves to venture into foreign culture and is trying to figure out the difference between the hookah and the haka.

Todd participated in two cycling “races” this year and really enjoyed them. He placed fifth out of 715 people in one. He also finally met a cycling goal he has had for some time, completing a “century” ride at a 20 mph pace or better. He also compiled 1000 miles cycling during the month of July 2007. At this point we figure Todd has spent 54% of his married life serving in Bishoprics. This year at the beach, rather than have some kid call Todd an old man (as happened in the recent past), he was resting on the sand down near the water and overheard someone ask if he was alive.

Family Vacations over the last two years included a couple of trips to California and to Las Vegas for niece and nephew weddings and a nice Thanksgiving stay at the Colorado River. One of the California jaunts included a wedding Todd was able to perform for a niece. We also had our normal Beach romps in San Clemente where we concentrated on taking the big girls surfing just about every day. We had a really good rainy day at Disneyland when the park was very uncrowded. We seriously spent more time in line at a Churro cart than we did on average for the rides. We ate lunch at the Blue Bayou restaurant, something Todd and Lenore have wanted to do since time immemoriam. Laney had a loose tooth that was paining her in the restaurant, so Todd pulled it out right there. Later he thought it would have been fun to make a wish on it and throw it into Davey Jones locker. But, we probably would have gotten caught by Disneyland security and tasered on the spot.

Ruby the cat died and we got another cat from some friends. We named him Digory and he's got a great fluffy coat. So, he mostly gets called Puff Diggy and sometimes Snoop Diggy Dogg or Snoopy Dogg Dogg. The other cat, Tommy, loves to go out during the day to rid the neighborhood of any feline rabble. Seriously he has lost several collars in daytime tussles. We imagine a nice stash of them somewhere nearby where his most formidable cat opponent hangs out. It is not uncommon for him to return home with some nasty scratches and scars. Meanwhile Diggy looks at him like Rodney King saying "can't we all just get along."

When we are not studying up on the latest hypermiling techniques or learning ways to fend off attacks by Somali sea pirates, or viewing the first few seasons of Ugly Betty that we missed, We often think of you, all of our friends and family and wish we could spend more time with you.

More Attention from Prop 8 Noponents

Blog for Ailsa's Mission Letters

Click here.

LTM/MTC

When I left on my mission, it was the LTM. I had been to one semester at BYU. My parents dropped me off at John Wayne airport for my first airplane ride. A former roomate and distant cousin, Tom Grassley, picked me up in Salt Lake. I think a girl named Gina Darnall from Urbana Illinois accompanied him. They helped me with my bags into the foyer of the LTM and then waved goodbye. I sat alone in the orientation/induction meeting. I was special.

I am so glad I finally got the chance to do this with family. We were all kinda teary.

We had planned on my giving Ailsa a Father's blessing prior to her departure. The night before she was busy with friends and stuff. We then thought we would do it before leaving the house. But, we were running late and had to pick up Lane and Jensen. We left McMillan elementary school at 11:45. We were supposed to be at the MTC at 12:30. I disregarded all speed limits and drove about 85 the whole way. Once we got into Orem, we could tell we were doing okay on time. Still, we didn't get to Jensen's apartment until 12:20. We decided then to take a little time and do the Father's blessing. I am very glad we did. It was a special experience. Maybe as good for us as it was for Ailsa.

The MTC is a bustle of organization and positive energy. MANY local elderly volunteers helping at every turn. You can't help but feel the Spirit there. I hope many families with potential missionaries, inactive, or non members, take them to participate in this missionary dropping off.

If you want to see the true salt of the earth people and true Law of Consecration in practice, you must go. It is not unlike the Israelites leaving a child at the Temple to serve for years.

Ailsa Gone..... MTC. In case you missed it, here's her contact info as posted on Facebook

Alright everybody! I'm leaving tomorrow, and if anybody wants to write to me, please do! I really hope to hear from people while I'm gone. Let me know about everything that's happening and what I'm missing back home!

For the first 6-8 weeks, this is the address you can send letters to.

Sister Ailsa Christian Lillywhite
MTC Mailbox #158
TX-HOU 0310
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1783

And when I get to Houston, this is the address for now... until I get my first assignment that is.

Sister Ailsa Christian Lillywhite
Texas Houston Mission
16623 Hafer Rd
Houston TX, 77090 (add -4401 to the zip-code is your sending a package)

Goodbye everyone! I love you all, so, so much.

Ailsa