Aliya & Rope Climbing

I've been changing up my training routine to include what's called CrossFit. Cross Fit training involves a lot of major muscle group training & one of the workouts includes rope climbing. So I could continue to train at home I headed down to the local hardware store & bought 30 feet of rope, borrowed a ladder from a neighbor & climbed up a tall tree on the side of our tree & secured the rope.
I thought I'd include Brendan as Daddy's little helper so I asked him to hold the ladder; being a Weaver & therefore being curious & mischievous he began to shake the ladder violently while I was at the very top of the ladder!
I yelled down for him to stop but he kept shaking the ladder thinking it was funny to see the Old Man in a panic. I quickly realized that I was throwing gas on the fire by letting him see I was upset so I calmed down & explained that Daddy would fall &get hurt if he kept shaking the ladder & his job as helper was to hold the ladder with his feet shoulder-width apart; being such a good boy he did what I asked & I finished up & came down.

Almost immediately, the rope became Aliya's favorite thing to play on. She will spend hours twisting, flipping, swinging & climbing the rope. Particularly, she loves to climb the rope & sit in the lower branches of the tree, Queen of all she surveys.

Finally, the kids were inside, & after watching Aliya climb the rope like a little monkey, I decided it was my turn to climb the rope & get in a workout. I started climbing to get in my workout & my arms quickly got tired & I started slip. Slipping down a rope from 20+ feet up isn't something I wanted to do. I tried to hold on but continued to slip & finally shot to the ground & landed with a dull thud. First, I looked around to make sure no one had seen me, then...I checked to make sure I hadn't broke anything.
Sore & feeling stupid that my 5 year old could climb this rope for hours, I picked myself up & went inside.

Week of 8 July-3 August 08

This week was a really fun week.

On Monday, 28 July 08 the entire family went to the amusement park, Lagoon. We had everyone there...Marla's twin Marty came up from Phoenix, AZ with all his family & so we had every Sipe kid & their families at the get together.

We got there & the kids went nuts.
Brendan couldn't help himself & wet his pants a little as we pulled into the parking lot. As I was parking the car, the kids began singing, chirping & making various monkey noises singing the praises of Lagoon....we had reached the fabled Shangra-La.

We unloaded the kids, slathered every square inch with SPF 30 Sun Block, tanked them up on water, put hats on Brendan the redhead, Dallin the fair blonde & baby Corban. All this while Aliya danced a little jig.

Finally we were in the park! Brendan bolted with uncle Marty & his family to the back of the park. Marla was having problems with her papers & immigration so they held her up at the gates but finally, with papers in order they let her in.

We put all our stuff in the family pavilion at the back of the park & played, played, played!

Aliya rode her first big kids roller coaster! At first she did the whole thing with her eyes closed but finally got to where she could do it with her eyes open.

Dallin was very serious about driving his 'bum bum' car around. It was sobering to see him do EXACTLY what I would have done at his age; drive the car as fast as possible by avoiding the other kids.

Aliya wanted a piece of the action & loved driving her car around the track over & over. I can just see her as a Formula One driver.

We rode rides, ate a lot of food, drank a lot of lemonade & had a ton of fun.

Marla & Darrell will fulfill one of Darrell's 101 Life Goals-Swim With Great Whites!

When we were engaged, I was challenged to set 101 Life Goals. I took the challenge to heart & worked for nearly 1.5 months to set high level goals in 5 areas of life: Social, Physical, Financial, Spiritual & Mental.

Before we married I went abalone diving off Salt Point near San Francisco with one of my college buddies.

There was a storm coming in, the water was choppy & murky with a local sea lion population; classic feeding conditions for the local Great White sharks. Wearing my black wet suit, hoody, mask/snorkel & armed only with an abalone pry bar & dive knife strapped to my left leg I continued to dive for tasty abalones.

It was getting towards dusk & I wanted to make one more dive near a series of large pillar rocks about 50 yards offshore.

I took a deep breath & submerged into the inky twilight of the Pacific & began to push myself down the side of the rock seeking abalone. Suddenly something told me to look towards the deep ocean; I turned to see a Great White coming at me & the last moment vier off & stop his attack on me!

The shark was HUGE! Easily 15+feet long I only caught a glimpse of his massive body as he turned back into the dark waters below me.

In sheer terror, I blew out all my air as I screamed underwater & I rocketed to the surface. I quickly scrambled to the top of the rock to get out of the water; in doing so I cut my right hand.

Now it was getting late, my hand was cut & bleeding & I was stuck on top of a rock with the tide coming in & a shark in the water. What made the situation worse was I couldn't see the dorsal fin & hence didn't know where he was. If I could at least see the fin I could keep track of him.

I frantically yelled to my buddy Dean, 'Shark! Shark! There's a big, freakn' shark in the water!' He was too far away to hear me. Now the situation was worse that before. I had a friend & a shark in the water.

I had to make a quick decision: stay on the rock & wait which meant that I would be safe but Dean could be attacked or, I could jump back into the water & haul tail to the shore & get Dean's attention to get him out of the water. But, this latter decision meant that I had to get back into the water with a big shark in the area. I had to fight my basic, primal personal survival instinct to save myself at the expense of someone else.

Quickly my thoughts turned to my own mortality & to the eternities. There on that rock I knelt & said the shortest, most sincere prayer of my life...

"Heavenly Father there's a shark in the water, my hand is cut & bleeding & I need you to help me swim very fast; please help me swim very fast! In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen!"

And with that, I took one final look around me & literally made the biggest leap of faith I've ever made.
As soon as my body hit water I exploded in a fury of flailing arms & legs tearing through the water like a torpedo. Those 50 yards were the longest I've ever swam.
As I swam with all my strength I fought visions of the shark exploding up under me like they did the to local seal population; I fought this vision over & over as I neared the shore scrambling to the beach with the same speed as I had swam; half expecting the shark to follow me onto land!

I ran to where Dean was diving & pantomimed 'DORSAL FIN' & 'SHARK BITE' to alert Dean to get out of the water. Dean swam over (rather slowly, apparently unconcerned) and got out. We pulled off our wet suits & drove back to our place in Napa but that singular experience changed me. I learned that man is nothing.
That shark could have literally bit me in half without a thought & in a moment I'd have been gone & no one would have known what happened. I wasn't even a threat to him; I was in his element.
Over the years I've asked myself why did the shark not finish the attack? Was I too close to the rock to effect an attack? Did it 'realize' I wasn't a seal & hence not worth its time? Question after question, after question.

Since that incident needless to say I've been fascinated by Great White sharks. Due to this fascination one of my 101 Life Goals was cage dive with Great White Sharks in the same area where I first met that behemoth. This October 4th Marla will be with me as I fulfill Life Goal number 19: Swim with Great White sharks & see a 20 footer come in & bang my cage!

I will post all the pictures here on our family blog so stay tuned.

One fat baby!

Who doesn't appreciate a fat baby, really...who doesn't but dang, look at the chub on Corban! His legs touch all the way down to his knees. He was checking the water before getting his bath.

At only 7 months, Corban is beginning to pack on the weight & we've been talking to him about all the sweets he's been downing. He enjoys nothing more than sitting in front of the TV eating a bag of chips & puggin' out.

Fishing In Texas

Brendan caught his first fish in Texas on Mom and Dad's ranch. I would bait his hook, cast it out and then taught him how to watch for the cork to bob down when a fish was nibbling on his bait. Naturally, he was impatient and kept pulling up the hook to see if he had a fish.
Finally, I got him to leave the bait alone long enough to catch a tiny bass.

He was so excited to catch a 'real fish.' We landed it and I tried to teach him how to unhook the fish but, he was afraid to hold it so Dad had to unhook it.

The next step was trying to convince a 4 year old boy why he should release his newly caught prize. I finally convinced him that we needed to release the fish back so it could grow up bigger so he could catch it again.

Welcome To The Weaver Family Blog

Welcome to the Weaver Family Blog Site

We're excited to have a new medium by which everyone can stay in touch with on another & keep up on what's going on with Weaver Family, friends, & associated outlaws.

The man to the left is Robert Weaver; part time Indian chief, (& ironically a cowboy) electrician, pilot, all time dad.

This is typical of most Weavers; full of life or full of something!

Dad was always into something, whether that was SCUBA, horses, horsing around or trying to teach a son how to work, he was always busy.