We parented, We're parents, We are Grandparents

Viv and I are so excited to announce the arrival of Gavin Thomas Gardner. Born on 27 November 2009. He weighed in at a tiny 6 pounds 5 oz. I think with a little training and dedicated effort he could wrestle at 6 pounds.

Brooke brought new meaning to the phrase "shop till you drop." She was out early (3:30) with her sisters on Friday morning to hit all the Black Friday shopping specials. She shopped for a long time and then took a nap and hit it again with Nathan. They called Vivian a few times looking for gift ideas and Brooke was really tired and was having contractions. Viv thought she had just been on her feet too long and told Nate to take her home and put her to bed so she could rest. When they got home and laid down she was still having pains and they decided to time them. Before they could time them however, her water broke. Nate got a few things together and jumped in the car. Their Dr. was in Jordan but Brooke was already feeling the need to push and so he raced to the Tooele hospital. While he was filling out some admittance forms they took Brooke to the ER. By the time he got to her side, the baby was almost there. Nate says they left home at 9:10 and got to the hospital at 9:16 and the baby was born at 9:20. Nate can fill us all in on all the details. We feel blessed that Brooke and Gavin are healthy and everything turned out so well. She literally shopped till Gavin dropped.

Nate sent a text message right after announcing the birth. I had just landed in St. Louis and turned my phone on when I got the message. I called Nate to see what was going on. He had still not held the baby yet it was so new. OK, here is a little insight into your dad...as soon as I hung up I stopped in a secluded spot and prayed and thanked God for his great gifts, then I cried like a baby as I walked to the truck, then I sang some of my favorite hymns at the top of my lungs. Fortunately it was 10:30 at night here and I was in the deserted parking lot at the Missouri Air National Guard facility so I don't think anyone detected my lunacy. Then I called mom and all you boys to let you know.

I was feeling pretty sorry for myself because I had to work over thanksgiving. Then suddenly Heavenly Father showed me again all that I had to be thankful for. I am thankful for family and the plan of salvation. I am thankful for temples and priesthood power that seals us together forever. I am thankful for a savior who is the power, architect, and sacrifice that makes all of the above possible. I am thankful for my sweetheart, her love, her sacrifice, her example, and her health. I am grateful for my mother and I miss her. I am pretty sure one of the last faces Gavin saw before he left his heavenly home to come stay with us for a while was Grandma Gardner. Likewise, I am convinced that one of the first faces we will all see when we leave this life will be Grandmas. We will be amazed at the influence she and all of our loved ones exerted in our lives.
I am thankful for the opportunity to bow myself before my creator in prayer and worship him. When you think about it, it is one of the most glorious things in life. I would be very shy about facing a king or president or ruler and asking for a special favor. Yet the God of the Universe allows me to approach him at any time, day or night and ask for the most trivial things. I have learned from experience that hears me, he answers me, and he begs me to come back more often and teaches me through his spirit to be more wise in the things that I ask for. I am thankful for a testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith and the restored gospel. I am thankful for my father and his example. We are all recipients of innumerable blessings because Grandpa Gardner overcame many of his families traditions and weaknesses and embraced the gospel with all his heart and taught us to do the same. His righteousness is being answered with blessings on the heads of his posterity to the third and fourth generations. I hope Gavin and all of our future family members will be able to say the same of me and that he and his children will be blessed because of my efforts to follow Heavenly Father's plan of happiness.

Vivian said I should not write like that in our blog because anyone can read it. I say, please do. Read it, think about it, pray about it. If you don't have this kind of joy in your life, ask me about it and I will be happy to share what I know. God bless you all.

Love,
Dad

I drew, I'm drawing, Im a Drawer

OK so we drew names for christmas and here is what we came up with:

Ben has Jason
Ryan has Brandon
Nate has Ben
Jason has Ryan
Brandon has Nate

That leaves mom and I off the hook. Merry Christmas. It looks like things are set to have a fun holiday here in Illinois. Everyone will be here except Nate and Brooke and baby?. I will even be here for Christmas this year. I am off from the 22nd to the 30th. Its a miracle.

Love you all. I will send more later. Got to run to church. Mom's surgery went well and she even felt good enough to go out to dinner last night. We went to the German restaurant and they had an oom pa band. It was funny.

Love you all.

I walked, I swam, I'm a Tourist

Ok, we are officially traveled out for a while. Vivian felt like during her Chemo and radiation treatments that she was confined and there was so much she wanted to see and do but couldn't.

Now that she is feeling great she wants to go and do everything. Now we have...at least for a while. We have abandoned Brandon enough for a few months. With that said, we had a great time in Cancun. Where to start?

Vivian left on Wed. the 28th and met me in Atalanta. We got up early the next morning and caught a free flight to Cancun. We were supposed to meet her sister LeAnn and her Brother Tom at the Cancun airport along with LeAnn's husband John. They all speak Spanish so no big deal. Of course you know of the Halgren curse. They are always late. Apparently there was a huge snow storm Denver (14 inches) John and LeAnn got to the Denver airport with just enough time to get on the plane. Unfortunately, they left their passports in the car. By the time John ran to the car and got them, the plane left with only Uncle Tom on board. John and LeAnn then had to decide do we really want to go or stay. They decided to go and paid walk up fares on a different airline which cost them a fortune. Both planes were delayed for de-icing. Uncle Tom arrived at about 6:00p.m. and John and LeAnn arrived about 12:30 a.m. The resort we stayed at was about an hour and a half from the airport. Vivian and I arranged for a van to take us, $100. Uncle Tom caught a taxi, $120 bucks. John and Leann caught the last bus south, $150. The story = priceless.

We hired an LDS tour guide on Friday morning to take us to the ruins at Chitza-Nitza (forgive the spelling) and then he suggested we go to Ek Balam. It was truly an amazing visit. We read passages from the Book of Mormon as we visited the sights and talked about the way these apostates worshipped and lived. It was fascinating. Some of the stuff we will have to share in person but I came away with a whole different picture in my mind of the Lamanites and Nephites 300 years after Christ's visit to the Americas.

On Saturday we went swimming and snorkeling at Turtle Bay and we saw several sea turtles a few sting rays, a sea snake, and lots of fish and coral. The water was clear and warm and we had a great time. In the evenings the resort served dinner at a central dining facility or you could make reservations at one of 4 different specialty restaurants. That first night together we at at the Asian restaurant, the next night at the Brazilian restaurant, the next was the Mexican restaurant and then we went back to the Brazilian restaurant because it was so good. We skipped the Italian place. Every evening they had some kind of program but we only went once to see the fire dancers. They were OK but not nearly as good as the PCC. We played a lot of games and just sat around in the evenings and talked.

Tom had to go home a few days before the rest of us so on Monday we went to the ruins at Tulum then went out to the forest and saw some spider monkeys and a Howler monkey. We saw a Cenote (a sink hole) that the Lamanites had used to bury some of their dead. They had skulls on a shelf down inside the hole. I played baseball with some Mayan kids about 10 years old. They had a rotted ball and some ratty gloves and they all looked at me like I was Nolan Ryan. Sunday we tried to go to church and we caught a taxi to get there. No one was at the building and when we asked our guide about it later he said, "oh yeah, it was stake conference."

We rented a car and drove all over on Tuesday and Wednesday. We went to the ruins at Coba and were able to climb the Yucatan's tallest pyramid. It had been closed for quite a while and we were lucky to be there on a day when it was open for tourists. You got there by renting bikes and riding through this rain (literally) forest. We were drenched. We saw the Stella (rock) from which they get the Mayan ca lander projection that everything ends in Dec 2012. I was not impressed. Who's going to believe a bunch of apostates anyway.

On our way to Coba we saw this big lake and a small rickety boardwalk that went out 30 yards or so. Our guide said, "hey, do you want to see some crocodiles?" Well who doesn't want to stand on a rickety pier in a jungle and see a wild crocodile? So off we went and paid this guy 10 pesos to stand on his dock. He tapped the edges with a stick and sure enough 3 big crocodiles came swimming up. Then he started feeding them chicken and beef on the stick. They came way up out of the water to eat. In fact they were higher up out of the water than the Pier so Vivian made her way back to the car. We saw several others hiding in the grassy areas. It was way cool. We needed to snorkel one last time before we came home and it was the best hour of snorkeling ever. We saw a whole weeks worth of sea life in an hour. All in all, it was a fantastic trip. We missed you all and I hope we can all go together sometime. Would one of you please become independently wealthy so all of us can leech off of you for trips like this?