Huachuca Threat

OK, it's time to do something about the border--and quick. From July 2000 to December 2000, I was in Army advanced intelligence training at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Huachuca is the top location for training of military intelligence specialists.

According to the Washington Times, Fort Huachuca was recently the target of a terrorist attack plot. The details should make any American's hair stand on end:

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5h0yCHUqsXgKdEsxXq0J3DZKgNCIA

Spooky, huh?

Michael McLean Adoption Fireside

A few weeks ago the Families Supporting Adoption board ran into some crazy good luck. Michael McLean, who was coming to Idaho Falls over Thanksgiving weekend to put on "The Forgotten Carols," agreed to do an adoption fireside for the Idaho Falls FSA.

Michael has written some neat songs about adoption which have already touched the lives of many people. He has a new book and CD out specifically dealing with adoption. It is not, however, on his website. http://www.michaelmcleanmusic.com/discography

But you can find the new book "From God's Arms to My Arms to Yours" on Deseretbook.com - http://deseretbook.com/store/search?search=Michael+McLean&x=0&y=0

So, I sent out a few emails. We wanted those in attendance to be almost exclusively those who have been touched by adoption. I figured we'd have a good 50 people at the fireside.

Tonight we ended up with some 250+ attendees at the fireside. Everything went just perfectly. Michael's music and message touched hearts. I'm really grateful I got to be a part of it.

Thanksgiving

Last year we put a whole bunch of hot rocks on top of our Thanksgiving turkey. http://potatoestopapayas.blogspot.com/2006/11/turkey-in-about-hour-and-half.html

This year we had two Thanksgiving dinners--one at Jessi's parents' house and one at my parents' house.

Someday we'll grow up and make our own dinner. On second thought, nevermind.

Here's the entire Grigg clan:

Sans myself. Starting at 12 o'clock and going clockwise: Jessi, Launa, Jaydn, Angela, Angela's date Matthew, Jared, Hannah, Alli, Sam, Willie, Les, and Chandler. Oh, I forgot--Riley is missing--he was taking a nap.

Here's Jaydn with his two puffy-cheek cousins, Willie and Sam.

After dinner at the Griggs, we went to my house. Good thing I have a second-Thanksgiving-dinner extra stomach. After dinner we focused on what is most important at Thanksgiving--video games and movies with Logan and Melissa.

Jessi is, of course, my Guitar Hero. She totally rocked on the Stray Cats song!



My apologies for the sideways video. Someday I'll remember to keep my camera right side up.

What would I get in 60 seconds?

Tonight we went to a drawing at a grand opening of Deseret Book in Ammon. The grand prize was a 60-second shopping spree. Jessi had been preparing for this for at least a week. Jessi and her mom even went to the store early to map out their items.

It was pure Mormon-shoppa-mania. We got there about 5 minutes before the drawing, and people were sprinting to the door so they could scribble their names on entry forms. There was very little elbow room in the cramped store. We were lucky that the fire chief didn't come--or that none of us was an arsonist. It was a madhouse.

And how would six Deseret Book employees control shoplifting when people were pouring in and out of the store? We were all on our honor in the store. It's a good thing that we were all members of the church and had been taught not to steal. Or were we? Or does that even matter?

They gave out several mini-prizes before drawing the grand prize. All books, except for a gift basket. When you don't get the grand prize, a book written by Joseph B. Wirthlin is still not all that bad. It's now #3 on my list of new books that I have to read.

Then the ground rules for the 60-second spree were announced. No $500 artwork. No artwork at all. No huge bags or shopping carts. And you have to bring one item up to the counter at a time. If any items drop off the counter, they don't count.

So, if you move like Dash, you could get, like, 1,000 items, right? Or, if you move like a normal person, probably 30-40. Maybe Jessi can move really fast and get one item a second--ramp it up to 60 items?

I had planned on wearing a REALLY BIG shirt and just piling stuff into my shirt, you know? SUCH a good idea. Oh well.

Well, as you're probably guessing, we can't win this drawing--just can't. And didn't. I think an older guy won. Anyway, we all left that DB store pretty fast. Once people realized they weren't going to get something for free tonight, shopping just wasn't as much fun.

I can just imagine what would happen if space aliens were watching us as we were piling into the store and then acting like nincompoops. "Silly consumer earthlings. Look, 200 people were in that small store, and only 5 people left with something. We must conduct a further examination into their strange behavior."

What a great way to spend our Saturday evening.

The Music Man

Last night we saw "The Music Man" production here in Idaho Falls. The biggest draw was my mom, who played one of the Pickalittle ladies:

Gotta love the wrinkle makeup! She did a wonderful job!

Trip to Utah

We went to Utah over the weekend to visit some old friends. We stayed with Jessi's brother Jared and his family. I messed up and didn't get any pictures, but you can look back on the blog and see pictures of Jared's family.

Saturday night we had a game night. And it really felt like we were in American Samoa again (except it wasn't raining outside). Why? Because look at who was in attendance:

Caroline, Jessi, Jaydn, Pyper, Mark, Me, and Angela. Great friends from AS. Yes, we even invited the General:

See?? It's really true! This isn't AS, it's Utah!



On Sunday we went to church with and visited our good friends from Connecticut, the Moodies.
Here's Jessi, Vanessa and Jeremy.

The Moodies are from Jamaica. They are some of our best friends. Here's us with the rest of their family:

From left to right: Jessi, Me, Justin, Michael, Jaydn, Nathaniel, Vanessa, Jeremy, Hanna and Brianna.

Michael and Jaydn are crazy!

It's pretty cool to have a neighboring state to where lots of your friends eventually gravitate, don't you think?

Jaydn's Birthday Party

For his birthday party this year, Jaydn decided he wanted to spend it with his goofy friends. First they fed the chickens.

Then he wanted to have silly time. Each child had a chance to be as silly as they could, or they could show off a goofy trick they knew how to do. MUCH better than Letterman.

Next, we had a pinata. It wasn't "beat Winnie the Pooh to death with a bat" but instead "pull the string to see which one opens the candy hatch." But with only a few girls at the party, Winnie the Pooh didn't stand a chance. He did make a pretty neat "pooh-hat."

After the pinata, it was time to sit about 20 crazy kids down and give them cake and ice cream. Boy, that was fun.

Finally, Jaydn opened presents. And, since my mom attended, we just had to do "Heavy, heavy hangover." Each child konks their gift on Jaydn's head several times and says, "heavy, heavy hangover thy poor head, what do you wish with a bump on your head?" It brought back many painful memories. I used to think it was about someone who was having a "heavy hangover." How appropriate is that for a kid's birthday party? It just hit me (boy, am I slow) that the gift is "hanging" over the kid's head! Duh!

The party turned out just the way Jaydn wanted it--one hour of completely disorganized chaos. Every little boy's dream.

Can you believe we have a SEVEN YEAR-OLD???