FIRE!!!

Fire season has begun.

Yesterday there was a fire on the mountain above Cedar Hills, started by an 18 year old out target shooting. He called 911 and with the help of a water-dropping helicopter the fire was out in just a couple of hours.

Today we were coming home from the funeral for Ferrus Larsen in Mapleton. As we turned onto Fort Canyon Road Don noticed smoke.

Don: "Is someone burning?"
Me: "I don't know. They shouldn't be" (Burn season was over the end of May)

By then we could tell the fire was on the property we call "The Castle." There was a bicyclist in the road on his phone (he was calling 911). We noticed a lot of cars as the Garlick's house and I remembered the Bridal Shower being held for the soon-to-be daughter-in-law. Don drove on home and I walked back to the Garlick's.

Matt Bishop has his own 2" fire hose, had hooked it up to his secondary water system and was first to start spraying water.

 This is the view from up the canyon.

One neighbor asked an appropriate question, "If we had to evacuate, how would you do it?" The whole road was blocked.

Turns out the neighbor was getting rid of some weeds by USING A BLOW TORCH!!!

Duke's New Home

If you are on Facebook you may have seen this post. Evidently something in Duke's dander was making Carol Ann get all itchy and stuffed up, even after multiple baths (for Duke, not for Carol Ann).

She called this morning to relate the happy news that Duke now has a new family. Her bishop's son has taken him to live with his family, which includes five girls. They live in the foothills of Hollister on a five acre ranch. Sounds like good times for him.

Now I can quit feeling guilty about pawning him off on her.

Fun with the Grandkids

     Last weekend we had the privilege and fun of having four of our grandchildren spend six days with us at our house. Yeah! Their parents left for Hawaii to celebrate their 10th Anniversary on Wednesday and returned home the following Monday.

     On Friday, the parents of four of our other grandchildren left for a weekend away. Those kids got to stay with their Aunts in Lehi.

     So Saturday we took all eight of them to the farm and Barnyard Boo! at Thanksgiving Point. We had a great time watching and feeding the animals, petting the horses, playing the Halloween games, listening to the story time, and riding in the horse-pulled wagon.

     The next day, being Sunday, we again had all eight grandkids, plus the Lehi Aunts join us for church. Our choir was scheduled to sing in Sacrament Meeting, and Don and I are both involved in the choir, so we asked the Aunts to come watch the kids we had, meaning they also brought the kids they had - besides, the Single's ward doesn't have a Primary or Nursery. Our Nursery usually has about 12 kids -- we added 4 more, sort of - one of them did not want to go, so he stayed with Grandpa during Sunday School and Priesthood Meeting.

     After church they all came to our house for lunch. Then the Aunts left with their kids and our kids took a nap, and Don and I had choir practice at our house. It was awfully good of our kids to stay in their rooms until we were done with choir, though two of them woke up before we were done.

    We has soooo much fun having the kids here and hope they will want to come stay with us another time.

Don's 2nd Half Marathon

He DID it!

Don ran his second half marathon!

He ran the Provo Canyon Halloween Half on Saturday, October 27th.

I was going to go with him to get start line pictures,

but discovered that he would be parking at University Mall at 5:30am

to ride a bus up the canyon to the start line.

And the race would not start until 9am.

If I had gone with him I would not have been at the start line

and I would not have had anything to do, but freeze, for more than 4 hours.

So Jenny and Kelly picked me up. Then we picked up Kristy.

We drove part way up the canyon to Canyon Glen Park -- the 9 mile point --

and waited -- and froze.

Finally, after waiting about 45 minutes, and watching other runners go by

(who thought we should either be running and/or cheering for them),

and checking out the variety of Halloween costumes,

our own Waldo came.

After cheering him on and relieving him of his gloves

we left Waldo to continue running four more miles,

and we jumped back into the warm car and drove to the finish line.

His official finish time was 2:19:05. He was 9th out of 14 in his age group.

Go Waldo!!!

Now he has it in his mind to run the St. George Marathon next year.

YUM!!!

Quinoa + Sweet Potatoes + Coconut Milk = A Very Yummy Soup!

LDS Podcasts

I would like to encourage each of you to take some time to visit this website:
http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?locale=0&vgnextoid=cdd1f9bd8b7d4110VgnVCM100000176f620aRCRD

There you will find many options for podcasts that are fascinating. Following is a brief description of podcasts that I found on the first page of the website.

What is a Web feed?

Web feeds are commonly referred to as RSS (really simple syndication) or podcasting. Feeds are a popular means of sharing regularly updated content (such as news headlines and First Presidency Messages) without requiring readers to constantly visit a Web site to see what's new. Feeds contain titles, short descriptions, and hyperlinks to longer articles or Web pages, as well as a linked reference back to the originating site. New content and links in Web feeds are updated automatically.

I personally subscribe to CES Devotionals, Conversations, General Conference, History of Hymns, Insights, Legacy, The Light of Men, My LDS Scholarship, New BYU Speeches, Past Impressions, and Relief Society. And there are so many other choices. I LOVE listening to these podcasts as I walk in the morning and learn something new each time I do.

My LDS Scholarship is a series of speeches by Cleon Skousen. I was worried they would be boring, but he is a fun and interesting speaker with lots of insight and knowledge. I have really enjoyed the first two of his speeches and look forward to listening to the others. In the first speech he recounted his experiences as a new missionary to a group of missionaries and then went on to talk about the atonement.

The great thing with this page is that here we are, just two days later, and all of the Relief Society meeting and General Conference talks can be downloaded already. It was fun this morning to listen to President Monson's first talk with a hindsight perspective. To remember that we were all sitting here eating our waffles and being excited for what new temples he was going to announce and then having our whole world turned on end as he made the announcement concerning the change in minimum ages for missionaries.

 I really encourage all of you to take a look and subscribe to the podcasts that interest you.

Fun, Family Night, and Fruit

While camping at Soapstone this year we got out our glow sticks for some colorful fun.

Thanks to Kristy for her photography skills and everyone for their creativity skills.

 

See the Olympic Rings?



Is this how to flat iron hair? We thought it was pretty funny.

Then Jamie told us her mom straightened her (Jamie's) hair with an iron when she was a child.

Obviously she did do it right onto her back like this, though.

 

Jamie spent Monday, August 13th cleaning the house, making some Quinoa for me, and packing.

Sadly, they had to leave on Tuesday.

For family night we talked about the five different kinds of families we have:

1. Our Heavenly family

2. Our earthly family

3. Our extended family

4. Our church family

5. I can't remember this one. Oops! And I gave the lesson. Oh well!

 

Anyway, because Danny's family was leaving we decided to

outline the kids so they could stay here with us.

 

 

Pretty fun!

 

 

This is what we have been doing since. Peaches and Plum Syrup.

 

Timpanogos Half Marathon Race Day

We got up early to watch the runners go by.

But not as early as they got up. They had to be there at 4am so they could

catch a bus up American Fork Canyon to the race start at Tibble Fork Reservoir.

The race started at 6am.

Danny went by just after Jenny and Kelly got there.

They didn't take a picture.

Jamie and Emily at the 9.5 mile mark in Cedar Hills.

Then Don came by.

Then off we went to meet them at the finish line

at American Fork High School.

We didn't make it in time for Danny to arrive.

He finished in 1:33 then ran for another 5 miles

so he could get in his 18 mile run for the day.

Afterwards Jenny and Kelly invited us

to join them at their association pool.

Ahh! That's better! Nap Time!

Hike to Battlecreek Falls in Pleasant Grove

A picture is worth a thousand words.
Here are seven = 7,000 words.

'Nuf said.

Kara's Horse Riding Lesson

Don and I arrived at Amy's house just in time for Kara to go to her horse riding lesson, so I got to go with her. YEAH!

Sadly I was messing with my phone when she cantered the horse for the first time.

But here she is riding bareback for the first time.

She had fun.

Then she spent about 15 minutes helping brush the horse she rode, Booger.

She also helped brush the other horse, Cloud, who started out as a dirty cloud,

but after the dirt clouds from brushing blew away she was more like a white cloud.

Thanks for letting me come Kara!