Liz Birthday Weekend

** First of all - there are a lot of images with this entry to load in.

This last Friday, September 3rd, was Liz's birthday. LaRue and I went to Provo to help celebrate and to take Liz and Gary to a program as part of the BYU Performing Arts series - a concert with Brian Stokes Mitchell. He is a Tony Award winning performer and has been dubbed the "last leading man" on Broadway.

The afternoon began with some shopping. LaRue, Laurie, Asher and I took Liz to Bath & Body Works to let her pick out some items.

Here are Laurie, Liz and LaRue (in the background) checking out some of the merchandise:



Then it was on to Build-A-Bear where Liz picked out a monkey to build:



Asher had to pull all the stuffed cars from the shelf and line them up on the floor:



LaRue and Asher. The earrings LaRue is wearing were made out of buttons from a red winter coat that belonged to her grandmother:



LaRue and Liz at the mall:



Here is one of the tickets from the BYU Performing Arts:



Here is the cover of the program featuring Brian Stokes Mitchell:



I took this picture of the stage right after we got seated. There are empty seats at this point, but the program was completely sold out.



Here are Liz and Gary:



After the program Brian Stokes Mitchell took a couple of hours to sign autographs and take pictures. Here is LaRue getting an autograph and then posing with Mr. Mitchell. He also signed a program for Liz and wrote her a personal message wishing her a happy birthday.





Here is the autograph he gave LaRue:



After the performance we all went to Andy and Laurie's house for a little birthday celebration. Here is Liz's cake and a couple of presents:



The cake reads "Brite and bracing". That phrase along with the bottle of Coke refers to a vintage Coca Cola commercial that Andy and Liz found on YouTube. The announcer in this old commercial referred to Coca Cola as "brite and bracing".





Liz with her completed Build-A-Bear monkey:



She really cracked up at a Halloween decoration LaRue and I gave her:



Here's the birthday cake all lit up:



Blowing out the candles:



The next day LaRue and I went to see Andy at his work. He is at the BYU Broadcasting building. He told us that BYU is presently constructing a new broadcast center. When completed it will be second only to CNN for state of the art tech.



Andy at a console doing some editing. He is currently editing an episode of the Generations Project:



Saturday evening LaRue and I drove to Salt Lake City. We spent the night there and got up early Sunday morning to attend the televising of Music and the Spoken Word. The program has been airing every Sunday morning since 1929. It is the longest running program ever.



This is the program for Sunday's broadcast:



Here is LaRue at one of the fountains at the Conference Center waiting for the program:



Inside the choir and orchestra were already practicing:



In the center is one of the control stations:



On either side of the stage hang these enormous screen:



By the time the program was ready to actually begin all these seats were taken:



The program was amazing. I found it fascinating to watch the cameramen moving around the stage and seeing how the different shots were done. The program was broadcast live and ran flawlessly.

Then LaRue and I took a few minutes to wander around the Conference Center. I took a few pictures including this really nice bust of Christ:



This was on the third floor. We could see ourselves in the mirrors on the opposite side of this opening:



And when you look down this is the view:



This is an amazing statue. We hadn't seen it before. It's a statue of the First Vision:



Finally, a really nice stained glass piece:



After that we drove back to Vernal.

All in all it was a wonderful weekend.

Heart Surgery

On August 6 I went into the local hospital for a heart stress test. It took from 9:30 AM until 2:15 PM. Much of that time was waiting between tests for the chemicals to clear out of my system before new pictures could be taken.

After the tests were completed, LaRue and I took off for a trip to Provo from the weekend to do some shopping. When we returned Sunday evening I saw that my doctor had called on Saturday. So I called him back and he told me the stress test came up abnormal. He said he would contact a cardiologist in Salt Lake Monday morning and arrange for me to get an angiogram. If you not familiar with the angiogram procedure, it's basically where they run a catheter into the femoral artery in your groin and up to the heart. Using a special dye they can see the actualy blood flow into and around the heart.
When the cardiologist's office called me Monday afternoon we scheduled the procedure for Thursday morning at Salt Lake Regional Hospital.

Wednesday after work LaRue and I headed to Provo to spend the night there so we wouldn't have such a long drive to Salt Lake Thursday monring.
We got to the hospital at 10:30. For the next hour they did paperwork and got me prepped - IV, hospital gown, etc. And we waited. And we waited. And we waited. It was almost 2:00 PM before they wheeled me into the operating room. That was because the doctor got delayed doing a pacemaker on someone else.

The angiogram procedure was painless. They only had to numb up the area of the groin where the catheter was to be inserted. I don't remember being unconscious, but I was for a while when they got the images and determined what was wrong. I had some blockage to a main artery that feeds the heart. The doctor inserted a balloon device through the catheter to open up the artery and then put a stent in place to keep the artery open.

In all I was in the operating room just over an hour. Because of the nature of the procedure I had to spend the night in ICU.
Because it was ICU LaRue was not allowed to stay with me. She went to Provo with Gary and Liz to spend the night.

We're back home now for a couple of days rest. Then back to work Tuesday.

Now for some pictures:

Here's the view of the hospital as we pulled into the entrance:



Here's the plaque at the entrance:



It turns out that Salt Lake Regional Hospital used to be Holy Cross Hospital. The only part of the Holy Cross Hospital that remains is the chapel:







Here's me after surgery:



Ready to home Friday morning. Liz brought LaRue up from Provo.

Patio Roofing

This last weekend - July 24th - was a holiday weekend in Utah. So Gary had an extra day off and Andy was available as well. Liz and Gary came out to Vernal Thursday night. Andy and Asher came out Friday night.

On Friday morning Gary and I went down to the equipment rental place and picked up a nail gun. We then got the plywood and tar paper. So, we were all ready to get going on Saturday morning.

Thanks to little Asher being an early riser, we were up and going before 8 AM. While Andy and I made a quick run to WalMart to get an attachment for the drill, Gary started unscrewing the sheets of plastic from the roof of the patio.





Andy took over the unscrewing duties and Gary pulled down the sheets and stacked them in the yard.



Little Asher was wondering what was going on up there.



Hi, down there.



After they got all the plastic sheets removed, I had to go along the eave of the house and scrape off the caulking that had been put on to seal the plastic.



Gary using the nail gun.



Andy clowning around swinging from the tree branches.



Andy and Asher taking a break.



Oh boy! Popsicle!



Asher's doing some gardening.





And a little raking.



Now Asher inspects the sheets of plastic.



Andy and Gary on the finished roof.



Project completed!