The Bee of Death

Day 199

Bugs don't bug me all that much. I have a lot more sympathy for bugs now than I used to. When I first moved to Utah I was surprised by the amount of insects are around. It is not like we didn't have bugs in Canada since we certainly did but we just didn't have the amount we have here. And I used to kill every single spider and every single bug that came into my house. Now I am a little more tamer, I usually let the smaller spiders live so they can get rid of all the other bugs. All other invading bugs I will usually scoop up and just throw them out of the house.

But if I see an Aragog spider (a nickname for a very large spider named after the King spider in Harry Potter) than I will kill it. I cannot sleep/walk around knowing something that looks big enough to eat me hang around the house. Wasps fall under a different category, I will kill each of those jerks inside or outside the house.

But back in the day I used to be scared of any bug. Even bees.

One time my dad was teaching my sister how to drive. She was driving our Aries and my dad was in the front with her. I was in the back seat hanging out. We were driving along just fine this nice summer day until something came in through the window. It was the Bee of Death. Or at least that is what I thought it was. As soon as I saw that it was a bee I panicked.

I immediately screamed and announced "A BEE!" as I about leaped into the front seat.

That was not good news. Jennifer was as afraid of bees as I was and I think my dad was too. At least he seemed the calmer of us. Jennifer leaned forward (while still driving) and seemed to meld with the steering wheel (like the Terminator in Terminator 2) screaming out "WHERE IS IT?" I was much too busy kicking my dad in the back of the head with my foot as I screamed "THERE'S A BEE!" while jumping over the seat. Jennifer was still driving at this point too even with all the chaos. My dad was yelling for us to calm down and pull over but it was hard to hear over all the screaming.

I have to give my sister some credit here as we didn't crash or run over any pedestrian. We parked at a 7-11 and bolted out of the car as soon as she parked it. We must have looked pretty foolish to anyone watching. Dad caught it in a slurpee cup and chucked it out of the car and drove us home.

I remember this experience like it happened just yesterday and I laugh when I think of it. It was just a poor bee. It was not like it was a wasp or hornet. I'm glad that my dad didn't kill it. He must have been influenced by Elron McKenzie.

Elron McKenzie gave a great sermon about the importance of NOT killing bugs. I have found a clip of it and I think you should listen and heed its message. You can ignore the first part with the music, that is not part of the sermon. And you can ignore the video that comes with it too, it is the message of Elron that is important and that starts at 00:27.

I Don't Want to Alarm You But...

Day 102

Camping is just something that I am not a huge fan of. I can do it for a little while but then I feel like my body just starts to scream "GO HOME!" after a few days. I like nature, don't get me wrong, but I don't like feeling dirty. My family and I used to camp but it was out of a tent trailer and it was only a few days. Kristy's family on the other hand loves to camp and will camp for at least a week.

So every once in awhile I will go camping with the whole Breinholt clan (or as much of them as can come). I remember one camping trip in particular and I remember it only because I have a couple of pictures of it.

So on to the highlights.


-This was one of the first major family events with future sister-in-law Andrea. In fact this blog entry is named after her. For some strange reason insects were her best friends throughout this camping trip. She would be attacked by huge moths and accosted by these large bugs. Every time we saw Andrea we would say, "Now I don't want to alarm you but there is a rather large bug on your leg." She stayed pretty calm during the whole ordeal.

-Steven slept outside in this large burrito made of a ton of sleeping bags, blankets and was stationed on these lawn chairs. It didn't work out for him and eventually he had to sleep on the floor of the tent trailer. Kristy was pregnant at the time and she stepped on him a few times during the night.

-Kristy and I slept in the tent trailer along with the Bellowing Chainsaw Snoring tag team of Mom and Dad and Andrea slept on the small bed/table. Before we all hit the hay, Steven and I were Moth Slayers. It was up to us to remove all these huge hairy moths out of the tent trailer so Andrea could sleep peacefully. That didn't last either. Suddenly one night we heard her yell out and thrash around violently. Yup, you guessed it. Sure enough those moths found a way to get in and get her.

-We were pretty far up in the mountains and we expected to see a lot of deer and elk. We didn't see any but Aaron and Heather claimed they saw a ton of them. My brother-in-law Gregg informed us that "seeing 45 head of elk" was just slang for making out in the forest. Besides, you would think we would see them too. I am sure they went out a couple of more times to find more "elk".


-Speaking of elk, my nephew Josh is terrified of them. It didn't help that his dad and everyone else teased him about "man-eating" elk that roamed the mountains. Now with Aaron's news, there were at least 45 of them out there! So being the good uncle I was, I would tease Josh that elk were everywhere! So I found some branches that looked like antlers and I stalked him. I wanted to pose a picture of me chasing him but he was too embarrassed. So his little brother Ryan posed in it. But I managed to snag another picture of me sneaking up on him.