Remember When...

January 5, 2014

Hello Family,

Once upon a moon... many, many moons ago, the DanDee family used to send a periodic email.  To say we have fallen out of the habit would be a gross understatment to be sure, but we have decided that we would attempt to rekindle that habit again this year. Lucky you!  Unless you find this bit of news to be unlucky; I can't say that I blame you if those are your sentiments. Since I, this is Dan, seem to be the self-appointed spokesperson of this family, I will probably be the one to write this to you more often than not. 

So the holiday season has mercifully passed.  I say mercifully since I can truly echo the feelings of the Christmas tune "..and Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again..."  It isn't that we haven't had a great holiday season, our Christmas indeed Merry and bright (and white) but there is only so much Christmas ballyhoo one can ingest before indigestion sets in.  We were very happy to have spent time with many of you over the holiday season though.  It was nice to spend time with those who are dear to us (if not near).

We had a nice New Years eve by staying at home with just us this year.  We had Beer Rocks (pizza rolls) with Root Beer floats and Tracen's favorite kind of salad... iceberg lettuce.  Iceberg lettuce salad, if drowned in ranch dressing is palatable, but I must say that I have definately become a bit of a salad snob.  Give me kale!  Give  me spinach!  Give me lechuga! (actually that means lettuce in Spanish but I was clean out of names for the other leafy greens).  Thes rest of our evening was spent by our boys besting me at video games (curse you Mario Cart) and us watching "Ghost Busters" on Netflix (that movie is nearly 30 years old!).  When the appointed hour hit, everyone that was still awake (all but Trev) went outside on the front porch and made a racket.  The kids and Dee had their home-made noise makers going while I sang "Auld Lang Syne" at the top of my lungs.  FIrst of all, the top of my lungs is a lung or two above the top of most other people's lungs and secondly, I really only sang the first 6 words to the song and then screeched the tune for the rest.  Nobody really knows the words to the song anyway... I swear it is written in a different language anyhow.  I am sure that our drowsy neighbors appreciated the Jacobs band, and if they didn't, well then they are welcome to put their houses up for sale.

Deanne is nearly into her 4th year of being the RS President of our ward.  As I am sure you can imagine, she does a wonderful job.  Deanne is naturally warm, kind and caring.  I so often see her furiuosly texting with a sister in the ward dealing with some very real and heavy topics.  Being the first man of the ward (self imposed title of the RS Pres's husband) has its drawbacks for sure, but the one that is the hardest is seeing Deanne's heart get broken by the struggles of the Sisters in our ward.  The calling isn't all about that though, Deanne is so very often visiting others, having meetings or praying for the well-being of her beloved sisters.  She seems to enjoy it.

My calling of Ward Choir director turned out being more enjoyable than I expected it to.  I am no Mack Wilberg (Max?) but I put together a program of several songs that I condcucted, a narrative that was only mostly plagarized, and a couple of musical numbers that seemed to go very well.  It was gratifying to see it all come together and that at least a few people seemed to be touched by the message and music.  I have new-found respect for conductors everywhere.  Hopefully I didn't have too much of that goofy conductor booty-bounce going on while I was leading the choir.  I am not that advanced of a director yet.

Tracen and Tyler are both playing basketball and enjoying it.  I am enjoying watching them even if most games end up with baseball worthy scoring totals.  Tracen's game on Saturday had the robust score of 9-7...  He did nearly foul out in the first 5 minutes which made that period of his play rather interesting.  He really is a chip off of the old block in that regard.  I would bet, however, that Tyler will be taller than Tracen, and if he chooses to pursue B-ball that might stand him in good stead. 

Trev and Tate mostly stay home and enjoy/annoy each other.  Trev got a foam padded Thor's hammer for Christmas which is quickly becoming a WMD around here.  In fact,  I was innocently walking down the stairs today when Thor's hammer bounced off of my dome.  When I turned around to see who my attacker was, they were gone...  Did the hammer act of its own accord?? I think NOT!  

I can see that this email is becoming quite lengthy.  Before I sign off I would like to wish my Mother a very Happy Birthday (on the 1st) and my niece a warm congrats on her recent marriage to Spencer Fogelman in the Sacramento Temple.  We were sorry that we were unable to be around for either of those events.

Love to all,

Dan