Final post of the day

Furthermore, having a title and a label seems redundant. Nit wit programmers.

I include another picture of two.

And, information about good brother Thelin. He called last week and asked about a trial I was starting. I gave him some detail. It was a life case, I had some good issues for a change. (I tried one a couple weeks ago, also life exposure, that had NO issues, until I created some, most creatively. Still I lost! :) ) He then texted me today and asked how it went: my pretrial motions, jury selection, the trial itself. I wrote him back; I told him I ran some motions; I lost some and won some. These "in limine" motions are an interesting part of trial, and the defense winning some is always a good thing. I then told him something happened during voir dire. (French for "to tell the truth" and our phrase for jury selection. By the way, as an aside, a good part of our present day legal terminology comes from French, thanks to William the Conqueror. More on that to anyone who asks for details.) The jury panel, about forty of them, were sworn to tell the truth, then the two attorneys were able to ask them questions about themselves to see if they would be able to be fair in this particular case. I told Tim he would have to call me to find out what happened. And I'm telling all of you the same thing. Respond to this post, inquire, comment, express a desire to know. And perhaps I'll tell you what happened. There were actually two things that happened. One has happened only once in my legal career. The other has never happened in my legal career, nor in anyone else's legal career as far as I can determine.

There you go. Pictures hereto attached.

Spelling mistakes and wicked programming

I am ticked off. I noticed two typing errors in my post. I tried to edit. I selected edit. The program would not let me edit. Now it looks as though I can't spell. My bad spelling is hanging out there, in little 0's and 1's, for all the world to see. I am so ashamed.

I imagine the programmers made editing difficult in this program just so they could trap people in this fashion. Fie on them. Fie on the world of nit wits who create programs that do not let you edit before publishing. Fie on spelling mistakes in general.

Fie.

Posting at the Zoo

A few weeks back, Matt, Britt and Abby visited, and we went to the Zoo at San Diego. I posted two pictures taken at the house. Yesterday and today Mom and I went to the Zoo again, this time with Luke and Leona. I thought I'd post a couple pictures from each post. I'm getting better at this!

An important thing to note as that the picture of Luke and Leona together is taken in front of the Komodo Dragon: the big one. Luke wanted to see this creature more than anything. So, we went both yesterday and today to the lizard house. Today, Mr. Komodo himself was out and about, awake, and right by the glass. So. There you have it.

And Leona is with the FABULOUS acrobats we saw at the Hunte Ampitheater. Luke was offered, Luke declined. He probably inherits a certain degree of occasional shyness from me, the poor guy!

Rats

I am also pleased. For other reasons. No longer will a rat be nesting in my beloved daughter's hair.

Oh. How inappropriate. I am sorry for your loss.

Love, Pops

Pacino Burton Thelin

At 12:10pm on July 25th 2011, our dear little buddy Pacino passed away and joined his pal Guster. Pacino was a year and a half, and full of energy is his last weeks. He will be remembered for his sweet nature and his love of cuddling. Everyone who met him soon realized how loving and gentle he was, he changed the premise for what people thought of rats. Pacino lived a privileged life, one filled with love and constant attention. Whatever he stood in need of he received (even if he didn't really need it). His favorite past times were cuddling on our shoulders while bruxing and boggling his affection toward us, playing fetch with his ball, and rearranging his cage to his suiting whenever we dared to changed it up (not to mention his affection for cooking with us in the kitchen). He will be missed dearly, he was our little buddy who would see us through what ever bad times or good times we came across. We are pleased that he will be in good hands and is reunited with his brother Guster.

I can do it too. I think.

So Britt inspired me. Sarah came here yesterday after dropping Thom off in Palm Springs: he's flown out to more training. She'll see him next at graduation, but he'll likely be gone a week after graduation before returning home. We need to keep him in our prayers, I think. Anyway, she and the grandkids went with Mom to the Pioneer Days activity for the stake. (I stayed home and worked on my trial that starts Monday. The guy is facing life in prison, and he may not be guilty. Those are the hardest for us. If I have no chance at winning, trial isn't such a bad experience. When your client may be innocent, the pressure is much greater, and it all depends on what you do, what the witnesses do, what the jury believes. But I divert from my original purpose.) Before they left, we visited, and I got some shots of Emily. (Sorry Luke and Leona--Emily was my target this time.) I took some photos. I also found some we took while Matt, Britt, and Abby were here. I'll try to post a couple. We'll see whether or not I'm successful.

Some fun videos!

It's been too long since I posted some videos of Abby. Here are a couple from this month and last month, enjoy!

My baby can hold her own bottle! I am so proud of you Abby! (6/4/2011)



This was the funniest day! Abby just couldn't stop laughing, even a fall couldn't get this little girl to not giggle. (6/12/2011)



I thought that the fireworks we had for the 4th of July might scary Abby, she loved them! (7/3/2011)




It's hard to believe my little baby girl can already crawl, and man is she fast! Its going to be not too long now until she is walking. (7/15/2011)



Abby just keeps amazing me everyday! Today while I put her on the floor so I could grab something she did this...well this is the second time she did it since the first time I didn't have my camera, she is so smart! (7/23/2011)

From Dad

Dad posted this as a comment, but I think it deserves it's own post. It is such an amazing opportunity for dad to be able to do this. This just really proves that all the expertise he has gained in immigration law is not only appreciated, but noticed because of how much of an expert he really is. Congratulations dad, you're amazing!


By the way, something else just occurred. I arrived at work Tuesday morning and logged onto my computer. I saw a letter from the State Bar. That is typically bad news: some client has complained, and now you have to defend yourself, explaining what you did and why. It's very time consuming as you have to dig out the file, review it, write a response. However, this letter thanked me for accepting a speaking assignment. Huh? Nobody had asked me, I hadn't said yes to anybody. But there was the letter. I've been asked to speak on immigration consequences at the annual California State Bar Convention in Long Beach this September. I have spoken with the folks at the State Bar, and arrangements are being made. My co-panelist is an attorney with the United States Department of Justice in San Diego. She prosecutes persons for the crime of illegal re-entry. Anyway, I'm really quite excited. The two of us will be able to speak from different perspectives. I've a PowerPoint presentation I'll use, she doesn't. There are thousands of attorneys in California, and lots go to the convention. However, I expect somewhere between 50 to 150 to attend my session, which is Friday the sixteenth, early in the afternoon, the second day of the convention. There are about 150 courses offered over four days, and ours will be one of them. I'm jazzed that I've been asked to do this, out of all the lawyers in the state, there's only about 200 who speak. The Bar site reports that there are over 200,000 attorneys eligible to practice in California at this time. The DOJ lawyer and I will have an hour and a half between us, and the subject is, of course, the consequences of criminal convictions on the noncitizen.

One last thing. The I-Pad 2 has been issued to us, and I'm coming to grips with it. It does not replace our Windows based laptops in our offices, but will replace all the paper client files we currently deal with. I'm excited. They are having us establish our I-Tunes account (through which we will work our cases) privately rather than through the county website because (1) the county would be too restrictive about content (our boss wants us to take these things everywhere so we'll be more productive, able to work a file anywhere, anytime, so she's allowing us to download our own books and music, and even some games; and (2) the county has really small limits for our files, and with digital .pdf files for our clients, we would exceed those limits quickly. I'll keep you posted.

Love, Dad

My Little Rocker Babe!

I try not to post everything on put on my blog on here (cause I figure you can just click on our personal blog) but as you know sometimes I just can't help it. Case in point this post, so cute!

July 14th and 15th my mom and all of her sisters had their annual "Grandma Camp". They round up all their grandkids and have a fun themed party. This year they did "Rocker Camp" and being that it was Abby's first grandma camp we made sure she went in style!

We rocked Abby out in a nice pink mohawk, cool rocker shirt I made, and a pretty sweet guitar rattle Thom and Sarah gave us, she was ready to ROCK!

Abby loved this little inflatable guitar, she loved it so much she decided she rather eat it then play it...just goes to show you can never tell a true rocker what to do.

After a long day she was all tuckered out.

The next day (because it was a sleepover) Abby enjoyed some more time with her grandma and cousins. We got all the pinkness out of Abby's hair but she still looked super cute!

I am still blown away everyday with how beautiful my baby girl is! She is just a doll and I love her to pieces!

A Post by Dad

This morning you hear from me. I'm up a little late this morning, as it's only a bit after 6:00 a.m. I've enjoyed the postings here, especially the photos (and yesterday a motion picture featuring grandkids and a slide!). Do you remember there was a slide originally? We tore it out because it was dangerous. There was a broken piece of metal that we wouldn't fix and you kids could get cut, so we yanked it out. It wasn't a pretty colored slide like the new one, just dull metal.

You may remember the Public Defender, Phyllis Morris, came to see me about a month ago and informed me (and others) that we were losing our deputy five status, which meant a pay cut of about $500.00 a month. My deputy five status was for subject matter expertise in immigration law. I told them I would continue to assist in the area in spite of the pay loss, for a number of reasons, and I have done so. But now, I'm not losing it: that decision was recently rescinded. People tell me it was announced in our budget meeting when Phyllis and Steve (the accounting guy) came down a couple weeks ago to chat with us. I was present at that meeting, but don't remember her saying that. It went right over my head.

Your mother built a table out of scrap wood. It's solid, it's ugly (it's odd pieces of scrap wood after all), and it's amazing. It fits under her work bench in the garage. A garage has never been this organized for us. Very nice.

Nick is feeling, and behaving, very humbly the past few days. You guessed it. Mom took him down the hill and had his nails trimmed, his beak trimmed, and his flight wings clipped. He even let the sister missionaries hold him, and one of them was able to scratch his head. Funny how his attitude improves with a little wing clipping. Although, if you think about it, the same may be true for us. We "get our wings clipped back" a bit, we get a little more humble, our attitudes improve. I'm not going to develop that thought any further but leave it for you to think about. I will point you in a direction, though. Read Elder Hugh B. Brown's address about when he was passed over for promotion in the British service, and the currant bush. You can find it by going to the church website, http://www.lds.org. It's an article entitled "The Currant Bush," and it's in the January 1973 New Era. I encourage you to read it, to print it and keep it around in your homes. I encourage you to think and pray about it.

Emma's first meal

For those that don't know, which would be everyone except Luke and Leona, Emma got her first taste of food tonight.

Where's the food? This is taking way too long!

Not bad... now where's dinner mommy?

And for those that wanted some more photos of the play set and slide...

Happy Day!

So I've received posted that Matt, after six years of working at Wal-Mart and spending almost five years of those looking for a better job, was hired at Batteries Plus+ and we were very excited! We were hoping he would get hired on their bookkeeping position but instead was hired as a retail sales rep. It was a job so we were grateful, well....

I can officially call my hubby an Accountant now! Matt got offered a job at Southern Utah Valley Electric Service District (try saying that ten times really fast).

He will be working in Payson (about two miles from our house) and I couldn't be more excited for him! He will be working with a group of accountants as an assistant accountant. He will help them out with day-to-day items and he will get so much experience from this job which will be awesome! Right now Matt has his Associate in Accounting and is working towards his Bachelors (which he should get next year). I think this job will be perfect while he is going to school and will look awesome on a resume. It's also something that Matt has been looking to do for a long time now. Plus he gets weekends and holidays off which I don't think he has had off for close to ten years now! He starts on Monday and I am just so proud of him!

Our Family Photos!

My AMAZING friend Ashley Biggers took these photos for us and I can't thank her enough, they turned out awesome! These photos mark Abby's 6-month mark and I am still at awe at how big and beautiful our baby girl is getting. It's so fun to have these photos, thanks Ash!

*Click on the picture to enlarge, it's worth it!