Interesting Hotel Stay

I have stayed at a number of hotels and have some pretty interesting experience but the most interesting one happened last night. My wife and children just finished setting up our living arrangements and were heading down stairs for a walk. My wife grabbed the door handle and pulled it open to go down stairs but it wouldn't budge. I then tried twisting and pulling both possible ways but no go. We called down and a host came up to help but couldn't open the door either. Maintenance came up quickly after but had just as much success as the rest of us. After some supplies were gathered maintenance came back up and was able to pry the door open with a crow bar. Once the door was opened it was fairly apparent that the maintenance worker came to our aid directly from his house. The hotel staff were so nice and apologetic afterward and offered us whatever we wanted to make up for the inconvenience. It was only a fifteen minute wait so my wife and I mostly thought it was funny.

Fun with Bees

My family had an interesting experience today. About 10 bees came pouring out of our chimney this morning. I grabbed the kids and ran them into their room and close the door. Sarah was kind of panicking so wasn't much help at first. Then I took a Tupperware container with a lid and started catching the bees and releasing them outside. I know sometimes when they sting or die they can trigger other bees to attack. After several minutes Sarah also was able to grab a piece of Tupperware and help get the bees out of the house. After the 10 bees came through no other bees came down except for two 20 minutes later; after that Sarah covered up the fireplace with a plastic bag and secured it with tape. We had a local beekeeper come over to our house and see what was going on. Turns out a bunch of Scouter bees came down our chimney. The beekeeper verified there was no hive or so warm nearby. Still thought it was pretty scary/odd that so many came through at the exact same time but the beekeeper said he has heard to of up to 30 come in through a chimney. The beekeeper recommended we cover up the top of the fireplace chimney with a board weighted down with bricks. So that is what I did. Hopefully no more bees from here on out.

Megan Brushing her Teeth

This occurred on 9/25/2011. Megan stands on top of the toilet so she can reach the sink. I squeeze the toothpaste for her onto her toothbrush as she has not mastered this skill yet.Then Megan proceeds to suck the toothpaste off her brush, swallows it, then brush her teeth with the plain toothbrush.

Megan Greeting Daddy

After coming home from a log day of work, I put my bicycle away and enter house. I unload my messenger bag and enter the living room. I am quickly greeted by my precious three-year-old daughter, Megan, who pulls down her shirt and yells out "Boobies!" I start laughing hysterically; my wife was not nearly as amused. I then look at Sarah with a mock expression of disappointment, "Tsk tsk, the things you teach our children, Sarah." Sarah smiles and we both start laughing. I love my family!

Klapheck Family Newsletter - just found this.

Merry Christmas from Klapheck 2.0

(Christmas 2009)

            Hello to our many friends and family once again. We hope that this year finds you and your loved ones happy and well.

Megan Swimming

Megan loves to swim. Here you are at 28 months swimming!



Megan no longer use arm floaties but still need help and uses a small inner-tube. Just last Sunday we went swimming as a family. Megan and I walk to the pool together from Grandma's house (Lynne). Once at the pool Megan rushes to the water, inner-tube around her waist, and carefully walks down the steps into the water. Megan continues walking down the steps until the water is at her waist and then jumps the rest of the way into the pool. There are three things Megan loves to do in the pool; jumping, spinning, and piggy-backing.

Marriage Logically

Posted this on Facebook on Saturday, October 16, 2010 at 10:19am

Edited and re-written here: Same Sex Marriag

Megan on her Tricycle

This morning I got to ride with Megan on her tricycle around the block. Megan loves to ride her tricycle, so we usually go riding almost every day. Once Megan puts her shoes on, we are out the door and heading for our bikes. I help Megan buckle her helmet, then we get on our bikes and are off. Megan has a small tricycle and I ride my 15 speed bicycle. Because there are no sidewalks, we bike in the rode. I watch for cars and mostly ride in small circles to not get too far ahead of Megan. Megan focuses on the manholes, asphalt cracks, trees, grass and anything except pedaling.
Megan is now getting much better at focusing on pedaling. She can go pretty fast now and can even make it over the speed bump near our house. Every now and then Megan gets stuck and calls out, "I'm have'n little trouble here." I slowly pedal up next to her and, with my foot, give her tricycle a gentle push. "Weeeee!" Meagan yells, followed by a "Thank you, Daddy." Megan is going so fast on her tricycle now, it won't be long until she can ride a regular bike with training wheels. She was so excited to hear she would get a bike like daddy's, she tried to get on my bike. "I ride daddy's bike," she exclaims racing toward it. I stop her with my hand, "The tire on my bike is larger than you are, kiddo." It looks like I will have to upgrade Megan's tricycle pretty soon.

Megan and the pony game

Megan (daughter) and I love playing board games together. It is probably our favorite indoor activity next to chasing each other around the kitchen partition. Megan started playing games with me when she got her first board game - the Pony Game, as she calls it.

The game includes three pony figures which move from cloud to cloud from start to finish. The pony spinner determines where you go next either to one of three different color clouds or to pick a card. About two months ago when we were playing, Megan flicked the spinner and it went spinning until it landed on the pink cloud, then, as if by magic, it move a little more until it pointed to the blue cloud. Megan saw this and got so excited and exclaimed, "how did that happen?!?" I then showed her there was a hole in the spinner board through which the spinner arrow  was attached by a plastic clip. Then I turned the spinner over and showed her the bottom of the clip which, when moved, also moved the arrow. So by placing my hand underneath the spinner and carefully turning the clip the arrow looked as though it moved on its own. Megan thought this was the best thing ever! She grabbed the spinner from me and repeated my actions over and over again until she could move the arrow without touching it. She yelled out with glee, "How did I do that!?!" Seeing as how she was waiting for my response I said, "I don't know." "I have magic!" Megan then exclaimed.
  So now every time we play the Pony game Megan tries to use magic.

Hornets nest in house

I remember in one of the early houses I lived in as a child we had a nest of hornets living in our ceiling. One day, after my father came home from work, we were sitting in the living room and all of a sudden my mother was shoving all of us out of the house. I peeked around her and noticed that there were hornets pouring out of a hole in the ceiling. Everyone of us hightailed it out of the house as quick as we could and piled in the car. Dad drove us to a store and bought some sort of spray that would help get the hornets out of the house. That was an experience I will never forget.

Deborah's Comet Song

I remember one song my mother liked singing to me every once in a while. I think she heard it from a commercial. Here it goes:

Comet it makes your mouth turn green,
Comet it tastes like Listerine,
Comet, it makes you vomit,
so take some Comet, and vomit today.

I am not certain what lyrics the song uses. Wait, I just found it at Wikipedia.

General Conference talks

I am so grateful that all the General Conference talks can be found online. I have been listening to the conference talks on my iPhone and finding ones I like the most. Once finding one I really like I look it up on-line, pint it out, mark it up, share what I learned with my family, and save the marked up PDF in my Dropbox.

As of Aug 22 I have now been putting my marked up conference talks on a separate blog. I no longer keep my conference talks in Dropbox.

Love My Familiy

I love and miss my wife very much right now. We just tried Family Council last night as directed in the talk Becoming Provident Providers Temporally and Spiritually and MOM: Everything I Need To Know I Learned In Family Council. Unfortunately it didn't go so well. We will work a bit harder to make it work this coming Sunday though. I have been listening to the General Conferences on my iPhone (really listening, not just passively hearing them talk) and have come to love reading their lessons to my family in the evening. I am so very grateful for the living Prophets we have in our day. I get to go home teaching tonight! I will be sharing Elder D. Todd Christofferson's talk on Moral Discipline. I am very excited to share the spirit in another member's home.