And His Name Shall Be. . .

Reddin Everett Menzie!

I got nominated to write this post by my sweet Baby Mama. She must think I'm not pulling my weight in the blogging world or maybe she is super busy with the kiddos. Or both.

It's official, Mr. Reddin is blessed and STILL has a name. Actually he has had that name for about 12 years. Thanks to my siblings for not using it. On February 8th (Heathers B-day) friends and family came to town and participated in the blessing of our dear mellow son.

Our bestest friends Josh, Erica with their perfect little handsome Mason Starr flew in from Texas on Friday night. We are glad they made it safely since equipment malfunction almost prevented their departure. My mom, Ama, also came on Friday, we are glad she made it too. It seems in an effort to cut expenses Delta has made a poor decision to cut flight benefits from the parents of our companies employees. The problem when the cut was made with no advanced notice only days prior to Ama's scheduled flight. She already paid the required taxes for the flight and was still listed online so I figured she would be "grandfathered" or should I say "grandmothered" in. She woke up even before "Farmer John" and drove 100 miles to SLC to make a 7:00am flight to find she couldn't get on. She was stuck. I was in New York working, trying get our flight off the gate so I quickly called my dearest and instructed her to "priceline it". She did a superb job for having never pricelined before. Thanks babe and thanks Mom for your patience. Even sitting around in airports all day as she seems to do often while flying standby, Ama never complains. Maybe cause the time passed so quickly while she was crocheting Reddin's blessing booties. Muchísimas gracias.

Saturday is a special day, it is the day we get ready for Sunday. We go out for lunch, we take an airboat ride, we look for gators, we eat some gator tail, and some frogs legs and we call it our let us have fun-day.

After a nice lunch at Jason's Deli we trekked up to the St. Johns river off Hwy 520 for an airboat ride. The Mrs. kindly watched the little boys, while big girl Mattie got to go on the ride with us. The airboat captain said there was no guarantee we'd see gators. Probably a good thing for them cause they wouldn't have made a cent that day. A little nippy and overcast means them gators take off from gawking at us snap happy tourists. But we got our revenge and it tasted so good. Erica and my mom wouldn't eat but a nibble, if you could even call it that. Neither of them dared to look at the frog legs. Certainly they were the best I've ever had. Minimal swampy taste and a nice breading made for "good eats". I think I might even suggest my bud Alton Brown to attempt to duplicate such yumminess.

Sunday afternoon came and would you know, we made it to church on time. Lately it seems when I am home on Sunday we run pretty late. While I'm on the road Heather assures me she is always on time. Go figure.

For some reason I am a little weird about repetitious prayers and especially in baby blessings. I am not knocking anyone of you or your husbands, mainly just myself. So, I go up there with a rehearsed intro to the blessing which evolves a different word structure other than "and the name by which he shall be known on the records of the church is. . .". That part was fine. During the prayer my mind if filled with promptings from the spirit and I do my best to express those feelings without common phrasing. I know I'm crazy. I may have had a specific thought or two which I didn't say because I couldn't think of a way to say it without the common phrasing that is heard all too often and that I even did with Mattie. Weirdo! right? That passes as I continue with the blessing. More thoughts are filling my head but I had to turn off the spiritual spigot when I started to choke up. I know I am feeling pretty close to the spirit by then because my voice got real shaky. This happened when I was younger while blessing the sacrament and doing confirmations on my mission. It also happened with Mo.

So I sit down and the first thing out of Heather's mouth was, "is he not going on a mission or getting married in the temple?" I told her, "I guess not." Just kidding! Of course he is! Just because I didn't say it doesn't mean he is doomed or will die prior to that age. The moral is, say exactly what comes to mind or your wife will question you and think your son won't grow to adulthood or go on a mission.

The weekend was great and filled with other fun times. Carrabbas on Saturday, graciously treated by Josh and Erica, was tasty. Since it was Heather's birthday she was surprised by an awesome brownie cake. For dinner on Sunday night we had Wayne’s pulled pork recipe. I had smoked it the previous Sunday throughout the night into the wee hours of Monday since I knew I wouldn't have time with friends and family on the way. I think it tasted better after having sat in the fridge a few days prior to freezing which enabled the flavors to meld beautifully. Sunday night was fun with Pop Culture Trivia Pursuit. The grandmas, Erica and Heather took Josh and Me on. Us boys got our butts kicked until we made a late and great comeback for the WIN after being down FOUR pie wedges while the ladies were stuck on "sports and games". While we were playing MoMo decided to take some pics of us and herself. The Starrs were over till near midnight when they double checked their flight itinerary. Whopsie, the flight they scheduled was a few hours prior than previously thought. They rushed back to the hotel and probably only slept a few hours before heading back to the airport. Sorry but it was fun spending the evening with you. When we go back to visit, soon hopefully, dinner is on us ok?

Thanks Bishop Draper, Josh Starr, Bishop Rivoli, Greg Paxton, Keith Berger, Travis Berger, Alex Berger, Philip Jarvis, Ben Burgoon and Mike Dahle.