A couple of more relaxing weeks

   Roy left early Monday morning (two weeks ago) to go to Maine for a business conference. They get a lot of their sales from attending conferences, and it's been a while since there have been any.  Now he'll be traveling a little bit more.  It's an all day trip to get to Maine.  Roy flew into Rhode Island and then drove the rest of the way.  He'll get home Thursday night.  I've been getting a lot done with him gone, but it feels very lonely at bedtime.  It's a big house for only one person.  

One of the company's involved in the conference sponsered a lobster dinner.  They are cooking the lobster above with potoatoes and mussels.  Roy said it was a little bit disappointing because the potatoes were undercooked, and quite a few people didn't get lobster because the first people through the line took too much.  Roy got a half a lobster, but before him people were taking whole lobsters and some even took two.  He said the mussels weren't very good mussels, either.  Half of his were unopened, and the other half were empty.  They had chicken and steak as another choice, so at least people didn't go hungry.  Maine is where the America's Cup regata takes place each year, and you can see why in the picture above--it looks like beautiful water for sailing.

Nick and Sara also did some traveling of their own (and on their own).  They revisited Nick's mission stomping grounds --Spain.  Jennie tended the kids during the day and Sara's sister tended them at night and on the weekend.

Nick eating a traditional Spanish Dish,  Paella with 
seafood, and rabbit, lamb or chicken

Crista and Matt had family pictures taken.  They turned out darling.  Here's just a sample:

Even two-year-old bridget is good at making faces.

Not a lot  happened in my life while Roy was gone. He was going to go hunting the day after he got home from Maine, but the weather was so wet, he and Dan decided to delay a week.  It was nice because Roy was able to go with me to take Oli on a little birthday date and let him pick out his present.  We gave him a choice of where to have dinner and he chose either Chick fil e or  Costa Vida.  I think those are the two places he always eats, but it was his birthday!  While we were shopping around we ran into Kim and Chris Saling and Jace.  We introduced the two boys.  They are 2nd cousins and were born within days of each other, but of course they didn't know each other.  

I've been pretty busy lately in my calling as Stake Young Women's President.  As a region, the stake youth leaders are responsible for providing refreshments for Seminary activities.  It was simple--just provide refreshments for about 400 kids--the part that was not simple was that were supposed to be there at 5:30 am to get the tables ready and set out the refreshments.  We arrived and the tables were already set up. When we started to lay out refreshments, they told us to hold off so the boys didn't help themselves on their way in. So, basically I could have slept for 15 more minutes 😊.  The speaker was Elder Vaiangina Sikahema.  He was the one who spoke in conference about sequential order.  His talk was very low key.  He and his wife talked about how they met and then he talked about how he was called to be a general authority.  He didn't talk at all about football (that was his career).  Afterwards he opened it up for a few questions, and of course the kids asked about who he played for, etc.

Then on Sunday, the high school seniors in our stake were invited to the Stake President's home for an open forum and refreshments.  The idea is to help the youth with any doubts or questions they may be struggling with or just coming across.  The Stake Presidency decided the topic for the first meeting and the kids are supposed to come up with the topic for the next one.  Bro. Keith Erekson is going to be the leader/teacher for the forum.  He is the head of the Church History Library.  He worked on the books "Saints" so he knows his history.  For our first forum we discussed the four versions of the first vision.  One girl said that she'd never heard there was more than one version.  Keith said that one of Satan's tactics is to say, "Oh, you've never heard of that before--they must be hiding it from you..."  He asked, "What word would you use to describe finding out something that you didn't know before?"  One girl answered, "Learning."   Learning is what happens when we find out something new--then we can learn more by asking questions and researching.  It doesn't mean that the church is hiding it.  I felt like the meeting was very uplifting and worthwhile.  We will be meeting once a month.  I volunteered my home for the next time.  Bro. Erekson is in my ward.  He has written a book called "Real vs. Rumor."  In the book he dispels myths that have been passed on in the church for a long time.  Apparently, he is the main person behind getting the church to put out more information on difficult topics.  He travels all over doing firesides about the history of the church.  

The Vances stayed for a couple of days over the weekend.  We enjoyed spending some time with them (well, mostly I spent time with them as Roy really did go hunting this time).  

Could the snow be the reason the Vances wanted out of Logan for a couple of days?

Even Todd likes watching TV if he's with his siters.

Bridget is good at entertaining herself.  She played for a long time with this little house and two of my Halloween dolls--Hansel and Gretel.  She loved putting them on the potty and then showering them.

Todd liked getting attention from  his grandpa.

Ruby got some grandma time because she wanted to 
go skating, but Greta didn't.  We had a good time. 
I was amazed that there were only about 8 people on the
ice on a weekday when children are not in school (UEA).

Ruby said she wished she didn't need the walker.  Maybe next time.

Bridget loved my Halloween decor.  She laughed like crazy at my wicked witch, but

I think she was secretly nervous.  Left:  Bridget and Greta, Right: Matt and Ruby.

There were a couple of other happenings this past two weeks:  Mav lost his first tooth (and he's only 5), and AJ and Dan also celebrated birthdays.  I think they're about a year apart in age.

Mav

Sunday night Dan had us to dinner.  Now that he works for Traeger, he barbeques regularly.  He had made a large pork loin that he'd gotten at Costco.  He also made a delicious sauce to go on it.  Dan let me try his Crio Bru/homemade grape juice concoction.  It was interesting--maybe it's an acquired taste. 

After dinner Dan had us try out his virtual reality game.  Jennie really wanted me to add these videos to the newsletter.  In the game you first walk into an elevator--it takes you up, up, and further up.  It really feels like you're in an elevator.  When the elevator opens up, there is a plank leading out and you are looking a long ways down with high rises all around you.  After walking the plank, you're supposed to jump.  

(Roy cheated--he closed his eyes before stepping off the plank).  Sometimes Dan uses a real board to act as the plank so you can fall off, but he didn't want dad and I to get hurt 😊.

Yuli loved the grapejuice

I mentioned above that Roy went hunting this weekend (Friday and Saturday).  For the first time he's agreed to write his own paragraph in this newsletter.  He wants to document his activities as well, and I usually only mention them in passing. So, the rest of this letter is written by dad.

On Tuesday, October 12th I arranged for a visit to one of my friends (Lyle Petersen - we have been on a couple of trips with he and his wife Christine, including Iceland and Galapagos Islands) with my young men (Priests), in order to see his fancy cars.  The Deacons and Teachers heard about it and asked if they could join in.  He has a six car garage at his house and has a hanger down at the Skypark Airport in order to house a half dozen or so cars down there as well.  We started at his house around 7 pm.  Lyle has a lot of interesting and fun stories to tell.  He showed the cars at his house, a Porsche Cayenne, a Corvette, a Ferrari 480 and two Mercedes Benz's.  Those who wanted to got to sit in them and he started up the Ferrari and the Corvette so that the boys could hear what they sound like.  They boys had a great time.  We ran out of time to go down to the hanger so we asked Lyle if it would be okay to go and see the hanger cars on another night which he said would be fine.  

 

On Friday, October 15th - Saturday, October 16th, Dan and I went Elk hunting.  We had acquired some Spike Bull Elk permits that were good for certain areas in the state.  We choose the Strawberry Reservoir area.  We decided that it would be a good NEW area to explore.  I picked Dan up in the truck around 9:00 am on Friday.  We headed up to the Strawberry area.  We had decided to explore the area South of the Lake.  After a while we were on a dirt road.  We saw some deer on the side of the road fairly quickly.  We then started to get into muddy/snowy roads ( I had to put the truck into 4-wheel drive).  After a while we found an area that looked promising, it also provided for a good place to setup our tents later.  Things were icy, crunchy in the mornings and muddy/snowing in the afternoons depending upon where you were.  We decided to split up in order to cover more area.  We thought later that it might be better to stay closer together for safety, etc.  I spotted 4 -5 Elk on a ridge, too far to shoot or even tell what they were,  but they seemed to be Cow Elk.  We hiked around until later in the afternoon.  I slipped on some slimy mud and fell with my right leg ending up underneath my butt.  I lay there hoping that I didn’t break anything which I didn’t, but I slightly sprained the ankle.  I was still able to hike around.  The next day my ankle was a little better and today on Sunday the pain is a lot better.  It was getting dark, we set up tents and Dan heated up water for our dehydrated meals.  Dan had a breakfast type of meal and I had hot chocolate and Mountain House Spaghetti which was pretty good.  We had gathered some Aspen twigs on the way back from our hikes. It was getting colder as the sun had gone down.  The high was probably around 30 degrees which was fine for while we were hiking.  We started a fire and tried to warm up a bit.  The wood was a little moist so it was a little hard to get it to roar really hot but it was fine.  We decided to turn in around 9ish.  The stars were beautiful up there since there wasn't any light pollution.  It was super quiet as well.  It was very cold during the night but I stayed reasonably warm.  I had a nice blow up pad, I left my pants and long t-shirt on, and slept in my mummy bag, I laid another open sleeping bag on top.  I also laid my Alaska winter coat on top.  Dan gave me a bunch of hand and toe warmers and I used them all inside the sleeping bag.  I was fairly warm during the night. I heard a bugling Elk during the night that was fairly close by--that was kind of cool, 

 

The next morning we got up early and hiked up the mountain before the sun came up.  Saturday, Dan had a lot more luck seeing animals (Elk, Deer, Hawks and a Grouse).  It was a beautiful sunny day.  We hiked separately again watching over a few different areas.  Dan had some deer (2 mommas and 2 babies) that walked right at him until they realized that he was there.  He said that if it had been deer season, he would have got one.  Dan did a lot more hiking than I did but I still got a good workout.  All in all it was a beautiful and good day even though we didn’t see a spike to shoot.  In the mid-afternoon, we packed up our tents and headed out to scout another area for next year.  As it was the afternoon the roads were super muddy, my truck got pretty gooey on the under carriage, tires, etc. We found another area on the other side of the range for possible hunting for next year.  It was a great to spend a day with Dan on his birthday.