Sunday, October 26, 2008

Autumn in Logan

Tuesday evening we had Surendra (a Thermo Fisher Scientific colleague of mine who works out of Bangalore, India) and his wife Vidya over for dinner. Suren (nickname) is an engineer and Vidya is a physician. We prepared a vegetarian meal. They were pleasantly surprised to learn that we drank no alcohol and did not smoke. We enjoyed learning about one another. Suren had been in the US for about 4 weeks, with Vidya joining him just this last week. They were adventuresome and had fun driving on the wrong side of the road (for them) and visiting places like Yellowstone and Jackson Hole on the weekend.
Suren and Vidya about to sample bland american vegetarian fare.

On Thursday Gayle and I ventured down to Sandy to get fully checked out as potential IntraLase or PRK candidates (two different ways of doing laser eye surgery). We have to take Gayle back because some recent contact problems she has had made it difficult to determine whether her corneas are shaped properly for either surgery to work well. I, on the other hand, could be a fine PRK candidate (astigmatism makes this a better choice than IntraLase to avoid potential cornea issues after surgery). However, due to our advanced age (baby-boomers), the chances are that we'll get cataracts down the road and need intra-ocular lenses anyway, so we need to weigh whether to bother getting laser surgery now. Also, I would need to decide whether to do mono-vision (one eye for distance, the other for reading), or get both done for distance and wear reading glasses, or just do one eye (my dominant eye- right) for distance and keep my left for reading (since it is less myopic). Basically, we have several decisions to make, and the expense is not insignificant. The clinic (several staff and a doctor) spent all afternoon with us. We were amazed at how thorough and honest they were with us. They weren't trying to push the laser surgery at all, and even brought up the cataract issue and whether we would even want lasik at this point. In the process, they discovered I have drusen (plural of druse, a German word) on my right retina. These are deposits of degenerated proteins and are a precursor of Dry Macular Degeneration, which generally leads to Wet Macular Degeneration over time, if not checked. See this site for information if you're interested:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/macular-degeneration/DS00284/DSECTION=causes

A combination of vitamins and minerals seems to stave off progression of Macular Degeneration, so we've already bought some supplements they recommended. We also have a list of foods rich in lutein and a related pigment that help. Two plants rich in these anti-oxidants are kale and collard greens.
I'm holding kale in my right hand and collards in my left. I kind of like them, but Gayle doesn't like the bitter taste, even though she's from the South.

Craig Mortensen and I sang "Secret Prayer" in Sacrament meeting today. We sang the last two verses and choruses in Spanish. Hector Mendiola, a friend of ours from Mexico, D.F., even came out hear us.

Gayle and I couldn't think of other interesting things to put on the blog this week, so we had our neighbor shoot some photos of us on a pile of leaves this evening to show that much of our time this weekend was spent doing yardwork in preparation for the anticipated long winter.

Here we are propped up on a leaf pile. It was dusk and the flash didn't quite make it to us, so it looks a bit dark.
Even though this shot was taken seconds later, since the camera was closer, the flash lights us up much better in this shot. Our friend and neighbor Jeff King did the photography.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Kelly and Trish's Wedding and Reception

Jared, Grandma, Grandpa, Gayle, and I all drove down to SLC on Saturday to get to the chapel early, before the big wedding. It was snowing a bit as we left Logan, but was not bad on the way down.
Another three generation shot. This is in the chapel as it was being prepared for the ceremony. Check out grandpa's tie. Mine is one of my Thai ties. Jared goes for the dark look.

Proud parents of the bride!
Here's Kelly getting ready for the big occasion, with Olivia, his 7-yr. old daughter.
And Susan helped with the veil, among many other things.
Another shot of Olivia, the ring-bearer.
Trish's singles ward bishop performed the ceremony.
Later, at the McCune Mansion, there was a lot of photography going on. In between professional poses and shots, we managed to take a few amateur ones. Here's one of Mom & Dad and their children (with Kelly). Back row: Nancy, Spencer, Susan, Robert. Front: Mom, Dad, Patricia, Kelly, and Stephen.
The six siblings: Nancy, Stephen, Patricia, Spencer, Susan, and Robert. Sorry for the poor lighting and quality. The professional didn't allow much time for the amateurs to get shots in and the poses weren't the best.
A group shot of relatives at the McCune Mansion. Enlarge and enjoy the un-posed facial expressions!
Cutting the cake up on the third floor of the Mansion.
First dance as Mr. and Mrs. Kelly Glenn. Congratulations from all of us!

Sunday, October 12, 2008

An Olympic Performance by Gayle and Spencer

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Gayle has worked at the Sports Academy gym for 11 years and I have been going for many years and/or working out elsewhere, so we decided to put all that conditioning to good use and competed in the Beijing Olympics.

Okay. So we didn't really compete at Beijing. Alicia thought we needed something humorous on the blog so she created this. The clips on her blog and the Maxson's are pretty funny too. Check them out from the links on our blog.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

General Conference Get-Together

Last night I took grandpa to watch the Priesthood Session of General Conference at his Logan East Stake Center. Today we had him and grandma over to watch the morning session and had lunch right after.
Here's the group getting comfortable and warm just prior to the start of the session.
We had a wonderful spread (as seen in the photo) for lunch. It rained much of yesterday and today, and was nice to stay warm inside and watch conference. Between sessions we watched a moving report about the Panama temple. We also saw the program about President Monson.

Here's a shot of our HD screen showing conference. It makes it easy to pick out people we know in the Choir!