Good News

Good News:  Roy's angiogram showed that he had no blockages.  He still has that genetic condition I mentioned in the last newsletter, but it appears to be much less severe than what Alan Rasband has.  The doctor doesn't think it will get worse.  He said that Roy can exercise mildly until his blood pressure is under control.  Following this he can exert more, but if he starts having breathing issues he needs to tone it back.  

We had a fun date with Jennie and Caitlyn to see "The Scarlett Pimpernel".  We ran into a couple of friends from our previous ward.  Laura Stayner and Jan Allen.  They asked us to meet them at intermission for a picture to send to another friend, Sharon Jensen, who usually comes to the play with them.  She chose to stay unvaccinated, then regretted it when she and her husband contracted COVID.  She has been down for 6 weeks.  As we lined up for the picture, we said, "Michael should be in this, too."  Jan and Laura had no idea who "Michael" was, until we said his last name, "Lowell."  He definitely looks different than he did growing up as our next door neighbor.

Michael Lowell, Laura Stayner, Jan Allen, Catharine, Roy, Jennie and Caitlyn

Michael was attending the play to see Ben, his older brother, play
the Pimpernel.  I knew Ben could sing, but--Wow.  He did a 
fabulous job.
Ben replaces Michael in the above picture.  He's the one dressed kind of funny.

Roy was able to take Noel down to visit grandpa.  Uncle Boyd showed up, too.  Noel has been calling and asking Roy when he's going to visit Verl.  Roy just had to make it happen so he could get Noel down there. 

Boyd, Noel, Verl (brothers!)

Another tidbit of good news is that Oli Green celebrated his 9th birthday.  He's pretty awesome.  I'm excited to take him on a birthday date--but a little bit worried about helping him pick out clothes because he's picky!  He learned that from his mom, I think.  Adrienne invited everyone up for dessert, and as usual, it was impossible to turn down.  

Oli--you can see he's pretty happy.  Oli with Gunnar, Finn and Grandpa

Each year, right before general conference in October, we have a Cook A Rama, a meeting with the descendants of Phineas Wolcott Cook.  Last year we didn't have one because of Covid, and the year before that we had a big one, celebrating the 200th anniversary of Phineas' birth.  Quentin Cook spoke at that one, so we had a big crowd.  This year the meeting was excellent.  The attendance was not so awesome 😟.  However, the people in attendance were awesome!  Nan and Bruce came, and Lyle Winterton with his son, and of course the board members and a few others.  Our newest board member is Marcia Marshall.  It didn't connect that she was my first cousin once removed, even though at some point she mentioned she was a Winterton, and she also sent me a history that Maureen wrote.  She is Richard Winterton's daughter.  She's amazing and has a lot of ideas.  She's working hard at putting information about Phineas' and his family on social media, and she's also starting a young adult group to try and get the younger generation interested in our family history.  If you know anyone 18-30 that would like to be more involved with genealogy, I can get you the information on those meetings.

Of course, the best news of all was the good news of the gospel presented by our beloved leaders in General Conference.  Roy and I had to retrieve the trailer from Flaming Gorge, so we drove up on Saturday (he had his angiogram on Friday) and listened to Conference on Sirius XM radio--BYU channel.  We stayed the night, took a walk to the gorge overlook, and drove home the next morning so we could get home in time to celebrate Oli's birthday. 

We're listening to conference on our airpods!  Roy took a picture of me, so I took a picture of him.  He made a face at me. I took a better one, so he might be mad at me for posting this one 😀

 I love reading my siblings letters--Dave has good ideas about how to make the conference talks more meaningful.  He said, "Last conference I took notes on the Doctrine taught, what

invitations were given, and what promises were made. This time I am taking notes on only the things I need to remember or implement into my life."  

I didn't take too many notes, but I plan on re-reading and watching for those things, too.  I loved how the prophet asked us to take a minute and ask the Lord to help us to hear what we specifically needed to hear.  There were a lot of things I felt were just for me.  I loved how several talks were about making incremental changes for the better.  

Other pictures from the week:

Beverly as Princess Leia--she isn't going to wear
this wig for Halloween, she wants to be a fairy--but
she looks pretty cute with hair.

Jennie's tending the Nick and Sara Rasband kids (Nick and Sara left for Spain on Thursday) 

She took them over to play wtih their cousins.  Yuli and Camden are so cute together.

You can't see it very well, but there's a bull moose in the background.  It's circled below.
Here Ruby, Greta and Todd quietly pose for a picture.  There was also a mama
and two babies, so they were very cautious and made sure not to get too close.

Crista sent us this picture of Todd captioned: "He misses
his grandpa and grandma."  He's such a doll