John & Amy Visit

My lovely wife has gently chastised me for not blogging like I used to. "I don't even know who you are anymore," she said, eyes welled with tears on the verge of overflowing. "You used to love blogging... now all you do is sit on your lazy butt drinking a root Beer! I want to live, Will. I want to LIVE!!!... via your incredible blog postings!" Gently, I stroked her hair as she sobbed in my lap. "Hush, little pup," I whispered, "Why, from this day forth..." I stood from the sofa resolutely, my wife's head flopping down to the cushion, "I promise TO YOU, CHALLENE..." The Battle Hymn of the Republic softly yet penetratingly played in the background as a soothing light silhouetted my frame. My arm raised in triumphant resolve. "I PROMISE TO BLOG! AS I HAVE NEVER BLOGGED BEFORE." I turned to her. Her hair strewn across her smooth face. "FOR YOU, MY LOVE!" I slowly return to the sofa and tenderly kiss her pouted lips.

So. I'm gonna blog more.

Way back in late December, I believe, our good friends from Portland began their long journey to move to Payson. They stopped at our house on the way and stayed the night. We had a rip-roaring good time as we always do with the Marshalls. I had recently acquired Guitar Hero for the Wii and we all enjoyed rockin' out to such hits as: "Heartbreaker" by Pat Benatar, "On The Road Again," by Willie Nelson and even modern day hits by Blink 182, Linkin Park, and Korn. Each of them, including my wife, were very impressed by my matchless skillz on a pretend guitar.

As midnight approached we began to become weary. We can always tell when the Marshall's are getting tired because the amount of swear words in their vocabulary increase exponentially. In fact, I found a graph.


Just think of Aberration as time. The % variance relates to the increase in swears.

As it was, we decided to finish our Guitar Hero escapade with one final song. "Will," they pleaded, "I want you to play a song on the Hard level." Who am I to deny adoring fans? I chose "Livin' on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi and set it to EXPERT level. I sniggered to myself as I thought, "they want a show... I'll give them a show!"

Imagine, if you will, fingers working the makeshift fretboard so furiously, that they were merely a blur. Ponder, if you can, a strumming action so precise and so quick it resembled flashes of lightening in the night sky. Despite desperate efforts to sway my attention (including derogatory comments regarding my undeniable manhood) I rocked the EXPERT level of that song.

Just like in Rocky IV where The Italian Stallion was able to sway an entire stadium full of near rabid Russian boxing fans (including the prestigious governmental leaders) into rooting for him and a glorious American victory, I swayed my little audience of three into cheering me to a magnificent finish.

That's when it happened. I struck the last cord of the song in true rocker fashion, knees bent, arm in the air, sweat dripping down when we heard what sounded like a loud explosion. Attention was taken from my magnanimous frame and turned to the window. Another explosion and an eye piercing flash of blue light rocketed through the windows and shook our very cores. The power went out. A transformer had blown and the power went out for the entire block. Including the "You Rock" signage that appears right before it shows you the score. All that toil, sweat, and pure rocking was for nothing!

At any rate, we had a new problem on our hands. Irresolutely, we decided to get ready for bed. It was then that we heard the beep. It seems that the land lords failed to change the batteries on nearly all of the smoke detectors in the house. Why is this so important? Because at 12:05 a.m. when the power goes out and you haven't changed the batteries, the "low battery life" beep will sound every 60 seconds. So it was with us.

What's the deal with putting smoke alarms in nearly impossible to reach places? We hadn't an adequate ladder so we tried to improvise.

Pay no attention to my white belly. Yes, I'm reaching for the battery with my grilling tool. The power was off, right? Sadly, My height, John's shoulder, and the grilling tool all came up short.

Fortunately, John had an LED headlamp which helped us find a broom and some duct tape. So, being the innovative scout he is, he suggested taping the grilling tool to the broom stick to lengthen our reach. He's such a good Eagle Scout. That's only the second time in my life I've wished I was an Eagle Scout. Only then would I have been prepared with an LED headlamp and been able to come up with such a wonderful plan.

You can see here that it worked perfectly. I popped out the battery with no injuries to anybody! You can tell by the circle of light on the ceiling that John's attention was focused on the job at hand and not on my crotch as the picture may appear to depict.

We finished with that one when another one went off in my bedroom. Again, durn vaulted ceilings made an interesting game of that one too. I think there was one or two more that we had to pop the batteries out of. We have yet to replace those batteries. Anybody have a 20 foot ladder we could borrow?

But we had a fantastic visit with the Marshall's. Ethan was especially excited to see them. Following are some pictures of the kids. If you've made it this far through the post, you deserve some pictures.

Joshy and Chloe. Josh is in awe over the awesomeness being displayed in the form of mock guitar. Choe is... eating something.

Ethan and Gwen. These two are just so darn cute together.

Josh stole Chloe's "baby". I'm next to positive that he took "it" as if a hostage in order to finagle a ransom out of Chloe. I'm sure that's why.

Joshy between the girls. That's more like it, Josh.

Well everybody, thanks for making it through the post. Challene, I hope this helps!
Adieu!!!