This Week - The ENTIRE month of October

Allright, as you know, it has been nearly a month now since I took the time to write. It is very easy to fall off the wagon. I’ll try to hit some of the October highlights. Enjoy.

Friday, October 3
Rachel and her Stake Primary staff organized a “Pennies for Primary” fundraiser for the local children’s hospital. On this Friday they took a few kids from the stake and all of the money they collected (over $550, $370 in coins) and bought some toys and gifts. They got a warm reception at the children’s hospital, and then went out to lunch at Wendy’s. All of the kids involved (including the Willes kids) enjoyed the outing.

Thurs Oct 9 to Sat. Oct. 11
I (Troy) flew out early on Thursday to Guadalajara, Mexico for an Embedded Electronics trade show that was down there. I woke up in a panic, realizing that I left my passport at the office. Fortunately it wasn’t too far out of the way, and all of the traffic lights and parking shuttles and security lines cooperated, so I made it to the gate with time to spare.The whole country between here and there was mostly mountains, and as we flew further south the mountains grew gradually more green and lush. Guadalajara is about 1 mile in elevation, so even though it is farther south, the climate is fairly mild. The weather was warm and humid, but still comfortable.Transportation during my trip was by Taxi. Nissan’s are very popular down there - maybe there is a local plant – so most of the cabs were little Nissan Sentras. The freeways were not maintained very well, so the shocks and springs in all the cabs were pretty much shot, so the ride around town was rather bumpy.Upon arrival I went to the local Intel site and talked to some of the employees there about the embedded group and our products, then one of the managers gave me and the other two guys I traveled with a tour of the facilities. The site was in a large warehouse and had several large rooms with rows and rows of assembled computer systems that were running tests. It was pretty impressive.I got to stay at the Hilton, which was very nice and right across the street from the convention center where they were holding the trade show.On Friday I presented for a couple hours in the morning. There was about 20 people in the room – a few people in the industry and then a few college professors. I presented in English because they said that would be better than Japanese J. (Regrettably I only studied French in Junior High). I let Marcos (the native Spanish speaker) do the networking.That afternoon my other traveling companion (Robin) and I went to the old city center and visited some of the colonial buildings and a nice museum. That night after another seminar, my buddies and took a cab over to Tlaquepaque – an old touristy part of town. There was a lively party at one of the churches on the square – complete with a Mariachi band. Very cool.The food was good too. I had some Mexican food back in Arizona once or twice since returning, and it doesn’t even compare. Overall it was a nice trip.Side note - Rachel was stuck at home while all the kids were on Fall break, so the timing wasn’t very good.

Wed Oct 15 – Fri Oct 17
This week Rachel’s friend from college came down to visit from Rexburg Idaho. Jackie and Rob Webster and their 4 kids stayed two nights with us that week. They were on their way around the country – they went through Las Vegas and then to Universal Studios theme park and Disneyland and then to Arizona and back up through Utah to Rexburg Idaho again.They have a boy that is 12, and then 3 girls that are nearly exactly the same ages as the 3 Willes girls. As they arrived, we introduced the 3 pairs of girls to their playmates and within minutes they were out in the backyard playing and making up games with each other.On Thursday they all went to the Arizona Mills mall (Troy went to work) and had a grand time shopping. That night we invited the Zachreson clan over for a bit spaghetti dinner. Everyone had a good time visiting. Thursday was Rob’s birthday and Friday was Jackie’s so Rachel made a birthday cake and we sang to them celebrated with them.On Friday we loaded up the van and took off towards the Grand Canyon. We were all excited to do a little sight seeing and hiking there together. Before we even got to the freeway, however, Rachel noticed the gauges on the van were acting a little funny and then things started to get hot and smelly. We pulled over and notice a lot of fluid leaking out onto the road. With much sadness, we had to call off the trip, and send our friends off without us. Troy dropped everyone off at home and then took the van to the repair shop. We had the van’s brakes worked on earlier in the week, so we suspect the repair man moved a water cooling hose slightly and then put it in the path of the fan – which then wore a hole in the hose. They repaired it for free – but we missed the chance to go on our little trip.As a consolation, Troy took the three girls to a fun swimming pool with a water slide and fountains at Lifetime Fitness. Rachel and Zach stayed home and tried to recover from the busy week.

Fri. Oct 24 & Sun. Oct 26
The girls had Primary Program practice in the afternoon. They practiced the singing and talks and then had Pizza. The program was on Sunday. Grammy and Grandpa Z. and Bob and even Tana and kids came to our ward to see them. Everyone did a fine job with their little parts.

Sat Oct. 25
Saturday morning Rachel helped organize AND was a keynote speaker at the stake 11 year old girls activity. 15 of the 21 girls in the stake participated, so they were pleased with the turnout. Rachel spoke on making good choices and staying true to values.Saturday night we took the kids to the local park for a big ward party. There hasn’t been a ward party for a while due to the activities committee people moving out. This was the first one that the newly reorganized activity put together – and they packed 3 parties into one night! The young women charged admission and held an auction to raise money (belatedly) for their summer camp. The activities committee organized some games and festival contests for the kids (Claire won some brownies and all three girls won goldfish-2 of which have already joined their fishy friends in the big ocean in the sky). AND at the end of the night, people sat at their cars and handed out candy as the kids went around and did a “Trunk-or-Treat”. The kids all came home and crashed.

Wed Oct 29
The kids went to Intel this afternoon for the annual office trick or treat. People have candy in their cubes and the kids get to go around and trick or treat. With the cubes being so close together, the kids are able to collect a lot of candy in a very short time! Zach refused to go anywhere that had Halloween decorations, or men handing out candy. (He was OK with the women, as long as they weren’t in costume.) The kids favorite cubes were the ones where the occupant had escaped the noisy office and left a bowl of candy for the kids to help themselves. They still only got one piece, but they didn’t even have to say “Trick or Treat”. Zach was always pleasantly surprised about finding candy left in a cube and would tell the rest of us “It(s) not (s)carry. It(s) not (s)carry. ” As is tradition now, we took the kids out to Souper Salad after event – where they munched on candy while eating their dinner and ice cream.

Thurs Oct 30
The kids had “Fall Parties” in their classes. No costumes allowed – but cookies, cakes and candies were plentiful. Claire usually goes to morning kindergarten, but she even went back to school after lunch for the festivities.

Fri Oct 31
On Halloween night Troy took the kids trick or treating around to the neighborhood homes. This was now their third trick-or-treat outing of the season. Emma was a princess with fairy wings – a.k.a. a fairy princess. Katie found a Matadora costume, and Claire was Super Girl. Zach willingly stayed home with Mom. He wasn’t brave enough to go out. Katie’s friend Kristin came over to accompany us, and everyone came back with sore feet and lots of candy, so I think the evening was a success.Side Note Claire’s Super Girl costume was worth every penny spent (on sale at Wal-Mart). A couple times during the week, she put the costume on and then ran up to Rachel to ask if there was any “trouble” that might need Super Girl’s help. Rachel was able to get her to clean up quite a few little messes. Rachel: “Quick Super Girl! Mommy really needs some help cleaning up those dirty socks and putting away those shoes! Can you help me?” Super Girl: “You bet mommy!” and off she’d “fly” to put away the socks and shoes.

Sat Nov 1
In addition to all of the Halloween preparations during the week, Rachel spent many many hours preparing for the stake Primary Music workshop held this morning. She was up late most nights writing up sharing times designed to teach the primary kids one of the songs for the fall program next year. At the workshop, she gave out the sharing time kits to all of the wards in the stake. Again a successful event.
Looking Forward November and December are looking to just as fun and busy as our October was. We have Emma’s friend Birthday Party, Emma’s Baptism and family party, Stake Temple Day and Thanksgiving all packed in there. I’ll try to keep on top of the updates, so you can hear how things are going.

Finally, I’ll leave you with one funny exchange between Zach and his mom.Rachel: (after getting a whiff of Zach’s dirty diaper) “Zachy are you stinky P.U.?”Zach: (in denial) “No, not Pee Me, Pee You!”
Take care everyone – and have a great week!