Greetings from the disaster zone.  As I wrote earlier, we had a big forest fire here a few weeks ago.  It burned 15,000 acres on the mountain above us and we were evacuated from our house for three days.  There has been a lot of concern here about floods because with the vegetation gone there is nothing to hold the water on the slopes.

Tuesday I left to go to Chicago on a business trip.  About halfway to Chicago I got a call from Sandy telling me that we had a flash flood.  Sandy had gone to the store on a errand and when she got back all the streets were filled with mud and water.  There had been a cloud burst on the hill above us; about 2 inches of water fell in an hour.  The water flowed down the hill and came through our neighborhood.  Quite a bit of it went right through our yard.  Fortunately there is a berm in front of the house that directed the flow around rather than through the house.  We have some neighbors who were not so lucky.  The reports that I read say that 40-80 houses got water in them.  One young girl fell into a ditch and was drowned.  Sandy had some trouble getting to our house.  Here is a picture of the driveway when she got here.

She spent a good part of the day shoveling the mud off of the driveway.  The last few feet of our driveway slopes up before it goes into the garage and the water flowed off the sides before it got into the garage.

Today we went on a walk around our neighborhood.  It appears that one of the biggest flows went through our yard.  Well there were some houses that were hit a lot harder but most not as bad.  Most of the water that came through our yard went around the north side.  Quite a bit of our front yard lawn is scoured.  I doubt that it will recover very well.

Some of the water flowed around the south side and flowed between the house and our outbuilding.

We had already put out some wattles which are long net bags of straw that are designed to slow the flow of water.  After the flood Sandy went and got sandbags that she stacked in front of the garage.  Yesterday a family in our ward came by with their pickup truck and brought us 2 loads of sand bags.  We stacked them in the yard in rows to direct water from the next flood away from the house.  Here is picture of the north side where the main flow went.

You can see our stacks of sandbags and wattles.  There used to be some grass where you see the flow of mud.

And here is a picture of the south side.

We also put a line of sandbags in the driveway to direct the flow off the driveway.  There is a real danger that we will get another flood.  Hopefully it won’t be any worse.  The monsoon season should be over in about a month. Some of our neighbors have brought backhoes in to dig big trenches around their houses.  I still need to try to clean out the dirt that fills the culvert under our driveway.

Well that is all the exciting news.  First a blizzard then a fire then a flood.  We are expecting an earthquake and a volcano next.  It is pretty exciting here.

Love,

John

Dear Family,

There is lots to report today.  Lyle and Emily came for a visit a couple of weeks ago and we have been having lots of fun experiences with them.  On Saturday the 19^th we went to the Grand Canyon. It is about and hour and a half drive from here.

 NOTE:  If you come to visit us we will take you to the Grand Canyon. 

As Lyle said it is a very large ditch.  It was a bit hazy that day so the colors were a bit washed out but still quite spectacular.  Here is proof that we were there. 

That day a fire started in Flagstaff on the south side of town.  Some guy was camping where he wasn’t supposed to be and left some charcoal catch the forest on fire.  We came home to a big cloud of smoke.  This fire is pretty much out now and was about 300 acres.

On Sunday as we were getting ready for church we saw another cloud of smoke coming from the hills near our house.  When we got to church they told us to go home because we might be evacuated from our house.  I was supposed to give the priesthood lesson that day so I hope that they found someone else.  When we got home the smoke cloud was a lot bigger, and sure enough we were told to leave our house.  Here is a picture from the front of our house as we were getting ready to leave. 

We were planning on leaving anyway so we just left 2 hours before we planned.  Our Relief Society Pres. offered to help us so the came and we put a few boxes of pictures, etc in their truck and also took Lyle’s car over to their house to be safe.  Then they closed the road north.  We were planning to take that road to Blanding and had to drive about an hour extra on another route to get there.  This fire is still burning.  It has burned almost all the trees on the mountain that we can see from our house.  It has grown to about 14,500 acres.  We were restricted from going to our house until Wednesday.  We meant to come home on Tuesday night but this forced us to stay an extra day.

So on Sunday we drove to Blanding and on Monday we went to Durango, CO.  Talon &  Anna, Sandy’s nephewand his wife,  had rented a house there for his vacation and had invited the family to come and ride the narrow gage railroad from Durango to Silverton.  Tuesday morning we boarded the train.  It was pulled by an old steam engine.  We road in an open air coach and for the three and a half hour trip mostly stood and looked at the beautiful scenery.  Here is what we saw.

The train from Durango to Silverton. We were near the back of the train.

The Animas River. The train follows the river most of the way.

  It was great fun and you should all try to go some time.  We road the train up and then drove back.  The road back crosses 2 passes that are almost 11,000 feet elevation.  And the scenery from the road is just as beautiful as from the train but not near as fun.  We had intended to drive home on Monday night after our train ride but as I said, we were forbidden to go home that day so we drove back to Blanding and stayed with LaNell, Sandy’s sister.  On Wednesday we found out that they were letting people back into our neighborhood so we drove home getting there about dinner time.

On Friday of this week we had our company picnic at a local park.   It was good food and nice music and lots of games, and it was on a workday afternoon so I got to come home early.  Saturday Lyle wanted to go fishing so we bought some licenses and worms and Saturday morning we drove to a local lake to fish.  We caught quite a few small perch there and had so much fun that  we decided to come back in the evening.  After a few chores at our house and a nice meal at a local restaurant we went back fishing and fished until dark.  We went to a different lake and I caught a couple of trout that we will eat today for dinner.

So as you can see there are lots of fun things for you to do when you come visit.  We expect a lot more of you to come.

I hope that all is well.  Take care.

                           Love,

                           John

We are having a hot weekend.  Although hot in Flagstaff is not bad.  Yesterday I got to about 90º.  We don’t have air conditioning in our house and it was a while before the house cooled down at night but still it was cool enough to sleep.  The breeze comes up in the evening that cooled things off pretty well.  I spent most of the day yesterday working on a cupboard in the garage.  I am building an insulated cupboard to hold our food storage, mostly canning jars empty and full.  It has to be insulated and heated because there is not heat in the garage and I have to protect it from freezing in the winter.  It is fun to be able to work on projects again.

Last weekend was Memorial Day.  We traveled to Utah to see Wesley graduate from college.  He received a bachelor’s degree in computer science.  It was a long time coming and we are proud of him.  Brent came down for the festivities and it great to see him also.  Here is a picture of Wes in his cap and gown.

Wes in his graduation outfit with little brother Brent.

We had great fun during the time there.  Wes and April took us to see where they work.  April had us put on scrubs and showed us the robot that she works with.  It does arthroscopic operations and she let all of us work the controls.

On Sunday we went up to the mountains and some of us rode on rides down the mountain.  Here is a picture of Brent riding down the zip line.

Brent coming down the zip line at Park City.

On Monday we drove to Richfield to attend the Christiansen gathering there.  We met at the Richfield cemetery to see the graves there then went over to Aunt Gerri’s house for a pot luck dinner.  It was great to see all the aunts, uncles and cousins.  Here is a picture of  Aunts Pat and Marjorie, Uncles Bill and Richard.

Aunts & Uncles at the Richfield Cemetary

After our get together we drove south to Saint George and spent the night at a motel.  On the way we visited Cove Fort.  It was fun to see their blacksmith shop.  A missionary there gave us a great tour.  After a nice dinner we walked around the Saint George old section.  We saw the old tabernacle and Brigham Young’s winter home.  Here is a picture of Brigham’s home.

Brigham Young's winter home in Saint George

The next morning we got up early and went to the temple.  As we were driving the car we heard a bad noise coming from the front left tire.  So after the temple we took the car into a shop to have it checked.  While they worked on it we went to another session at the temple.  What a nice temple.  The shop found that one of our tires was beginning to separate and would have probably blown apart if we had tried to drive it home.  So we got home a bit late on Tuesday.

At work this past week I had a couple of good meetings with engineers.  They want me to help out with a new part that is being designed and that has some difficult inspection requirements.  Hopefully I will be able to help them come up with simpler solutions and then this will lead to other similar work.  I have found that my new job is very political.  It is nice political but still not something that I am used to or very good at.  Still when I had my birthday this past week I was happy to go to work.  I didn’t get to do that last year.

Hope that all is well with you.

Love,

John

Here are some pictures of our house that I promised.  I took them yesterday morning.  Please excuse any mess you see as we are living there. 

Here is the view from our front yard.  It is morning so the sun is behind me and shining on the San Francisco Peaks.  The tallest peak is hidden.  I think that the snow capped peak you see is the second tallest.  the mountains are a  large volcano that the top blew off leaving a crater with peaks all around.

Here is our living room at the front of the house.  The door you see on the left is our front door.   We have a lot of natural light in our house.   During daylight hours you seldom have to turn any lights on in the house.

 Here is another view of our living room showing the wood stove.  You can also see that our eating area is right behind our living room.  The door you see in the picture is to a bathroom and on either side of the bathroom is a bedroom.  I won’t show pictures of the bedrooms as they are just regular bedrooms.  However they have beds in them ready for you to visit.

Here is our bedroom.  You can see that the morning sunshine is pretty bright and it is hard to sleep in.  We have a big bathroom behind the bedroom.

Here is our out building.  It is devided into two sections and the doors you see go into them.  The large section on the right is the shop and the smaller on the left is the studio.

Here is inside the studio.  Sandy has her sewing machine in here but she hasn’t used it yet.  There is still a lot of unpacked boxes here.

Here is my shop.  Very unorganized yet but in much use as I am building cupboard and shelves to hold all the stuff that is still in unpacked boxes.

Here I took a picture of the back of our house from near the back of our yard.  We have about 1 acre that is mostly just vacant land with natural weeds, bushes and grass.  I could take a picture from the house towards the back because it was early morning and the sun is shining from that way.

Hope you enjoy this and hope that you will come to see for yourselves.

love,

John

Dear Family,

I have heard many deserved complaints that I haven’t made any new entries lately. I will try to do better. I definitely need to put some pictures of our new house up but I haven’t taken any and so I will use this post to talk about the trip that Sandy and I took earlier this month with Mark & Bodell, (Sandy’s cousin and my roommate from college).

We met at a campground near Escalante, UT on 5 May. We got up early the next morning and drove about 55 miles on a dirt road to the Hole in the Rock then 55 miles back. For those of you that don’t know this was part of a wagon road that Sandy’s family helped build back in 1879 from southwest Utah to southeast Utah. The Hole in the Rock was a notch in the cliff down to the Colorado River. It is about 1500 feet down. Sandy and I drove in our car about half way then we all piled into Mark & Bodell’s truck for the rest. The last part was too rough for the car

Our first stop was Dance Hall Rock. This is near where the group camped and they used the natural ampi-theater to hold dances. We hiked around it.
The cactus were blooming and the desert was really beautiful. The last 10-15 miles the road got pretty rough and it took a long time but we were able to drive right up to the notch in the cliff which we could see from the distance.

Sandy at the top ready to head down.

It took us about an hour and a half to hike down. There are a lot of rocks that have fallen from the cliffs above since the road was built, some of them as large as cars. That and the steepness of the trail made it slow to go down. We went up quite a bit faster. We could see were they had cut ledges and stairs in the rock and where they had stacked rocks to build up the trail. On the way up we found where Sandy’s Grandpa Ben drilled holes in the rock. They put oak branches in these holes and built up the on them. We could see where they had cut the ledge in the side of the cliff. Can you see the holes in this picture there are about 6 of them visible below the ledge.

Grandpa Ben's road.

It was a long day. It took about 13 hours to drive out and back. The next day we drove to some of the places that they places that they traveled to between Escalante and Cedar City and then went to a wedding reception in the evening. It was a great trip and we really saw some beautiful country.

I’ll try to get some pictures taken this week of our new house and put them up as soon.

Love,

John

]]> http://www.dadsweeklyreport.com/?feed=rss2&p=459 0 http://www.dadsweeklyreport.com/?p=455 http://www.dadsweeklyreport.com/?p=455#comments Sun, 21 Mar 2010 19:07:34 +0000 john http://www.dadsweeklyreport.com/?p=455

Dear Family,

This has been a pretty eventful couple of weeks. Last week we finally got an offer on our house in Camas. The offer was very low but since we haven’t had any others come in we accepted it. Then we spent this week looking for a house here. We spent 2 days driving around with a real estate agent and more time just driving around. Wednesday afternoon we drove out to the northeast side of town to look at a couple of places that we liked the best. While we were there we found another house being sold “by-owner” that looked like what we were interested in. Thursday at noon we made an appointment to see it and really liked it. We called our agent who had left town to go on a vacation, he had another fellow in his office go with me to see it again in the afternoon then we wrote up an offer. There was another offer on the house but it was contingent on them selling their house so ours was stronger because our house was already scheduled to sell. Anyway they accepted our offer. The sale on our house in Camas is supposed to close on 16 April and we are supposed to close on the house in Flagstaff on the 28^th of April.

The place in Flagstaff is on the northeast side of town. My work is on the west so I will have about a 16 mile commute to work. There is about an acre of land but the land is pretty flat and arid not much good for growing garden or anything like that. There is a private water company in the neighborhood and it is a bit more expensive than city water. The house is landscaped with trees and some grass but now it all looks brown and barren. It will be interesting to see what it looks like in the summertime. The house is 1590 sq. ft., so quite a bit smaller than the last two houses we have lived in. It has three bedrooms, all on one level. We should have two empty bedrooms that you can stay in when you visit. It was built in 2003. It has an finished outbuilding, about 700 sq. ft., that is divided into two rooms, one is being used for a wood shop and the other an art studio. Here is a picture of the front of the house.  You can see more about the house at this website, http://www.flagdreamhome.com/.

So now I have to arrange for a mortgage, for the moving company to move our stuff from Camas, and all the other things that go with a move. We are planning on having Sandy drive our red car back to Camas, stopping off to see family on the way. Then I will fly back to help supervise the packing and we will both drive back to Arizona pulling our little trailer with all the stuff that the moving company won’t take.

Yesterday Sandy and I went to the temple early in the morning. It takes just a little less than two hours to drive to Snowflake from here. Before heading back we stopped at a local café for breakfast. Sandy really likes to go out to breakfast. When we got home we took the dog and went on a hike at the base of Mount Elden, about 2 miles. The trail head is just a couple of miles from where we live now. Most of the snow is melted now but we got to walk on snow on the north slopes and under trees. Still the temperature was near 60 so it was just right for a hike.

Well that is all the news. I haven’t been doing much else except going to work and coming home. Work is going well. This past week was spring break and so most people were gone and it was slow, a good time to take off and find a house.

Love,

John

Dear Family,

We are at the end of a week long snow storm. Over the past week we officially got 45.7 inches of snow. Today is Saturday and the worst snow day was Thursday. That day we got 19.6 inches of snow with 4.3 inches water. In the evening the snow turned to rain which melted some of the snow so we only have about 30 inches of snow on the level. Here are two pictures that Sandy took from our back deck.

One is at the start of our week and one is near the end. We have been shoveling snow several times a day and I am getting pretty sore. Today we dug Allen’s car out of the snow. We haven’t used it this week and it had about 2 feet of snow on the roof. They have been plowing our condo’s parking area and road at least once a day and the piles are pretty high. Hopefully they will come back today and move the snow that we knocked off Allen’s car. Here is a picture of where Allen’s car was.

I was told that they never close my work. Thursday I went to work in the morning. It was snowing hard. I left before noon, put the chains on my car and drove home. Friday they canceled work. Several places with flat roofs had their roofs collapse including the local ice skating rink and JoAnn’s Fabrics store, (Sandy is sad about that.). We are supposed to have a couple of days of sunshine before the next storm so hopefully the snowplows will have a chance to keep up. They are generally doing a great job.

I have been to my new job for 2 weeks now. It is a lot different than my previous company. They make tubes that go into your blood vessels to repair aneurisms. Since it is an implantable medical device they are closely monitored by the FDA. So there is lots of regulations and lots of forms to fill out. There are papers to fill out and procedures to follow for about everything. Nevertheless they are quite behind the industry norms in Supplier Quality which is my job. So there are lots of chances for me to help them. So far I have been meeting people, reading procedures and generally trying to figure out what I am supposed to be doing.

Our house is still up for sale. The real estate agent is convinced that we need a fence to enclose the back so we are going to spend some money to have a fence built. We both think that it will not be a great idea but hopefully the agent knows better than us. Yesterday we heard that the garbage disposal broke in the basement apartment. Luckily we purchased insurance when we listed the house that will cover the repair.

Sandy and I have been driving around Flagstaff to see where we might want to buy a house. Unfortunately there are not too many for sale. I sure hope the house sells soon so that we can get on with our move. It is kind of annoying not having all our stuff.

Well that is all the news. I hope that all is well with you. Take care.

Love,

John

Dear Family,

Happy New Year to you all. We moved to Flagstaff, AZ this week. Monday I start my new job at W.L.Gore Company. It is a little scary to start all over, but I am excited to have work again and I think that it is a really great company. We are now in temporary housing which the company is paying for, for up to three months. Hopefully during that time our house in Washington will sell and then we will fly back there, supervise the packing of our belongings and move to a new house here.

On Tuesday afternoon it started snowing in Camas and snowed pretty much all night. Luckily it was warm enough that not much stuck to the roads. We left Camas on Wednesday morning with our small white car and Allen’s car and drove to Fresno, CA. It took us just about 14 hours. Then on Thursday, another 10 hours driving brought us to Flagstaff. We stayed in a motel on Thursday and then moved into our place on Friday morning. We brought just what we could jam into our two little cars. The place we are staying is a condo. We think that it is owned by someone who lives in Phoenix or Tucson and is there summer home. They just rent it out during the winter. It has two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a large room that is the kitchen, eating area and family room. It also has a washer & dryer in the front hall. It is pretty nice and will be fine for us. Hopefully we won’t have to be here very long. Here is a picture. Ours is the lower right. You can see we have quite a bit of snow on the ground. It gets cold here, especially when the sun goes down, lots of blue sky though.

Izzie, our dog is the most upset about our move. She rode in the car fine, sitting on her bed on top of all of our stuff. However she is not used to the new place and gets very upset if we leave her at all.

We had a great Christmas. All our kids except for Lyle and Emily came to see us. We weren’t expecting Ruth & Curt to be there and they surprised us. Ruth called Sandy to ask her what she was doing. Sandy said that the UPS guy was there delivering the last of the Christmas packages. Ruth said no there was one more coming and then walked up to our door. It was a great surprise.

Christmas Eve we went to April’s parents home for a nice dinner and party. On Christmas morning everyone was at our house to open presents. We got a ton of really nice gifts. Everyone was very generous. I am afraid our gift giving was sparse this year because of my being out of work for 6 months. Thank you everyone.

We have already had two sets of visitors. On Thursday night when we arrived, Candy, Philis, LaNell & Greg were staying in Flagstaff. We met at a restaurant for dinner then played some games. It was a nice New Years Eve celebration. Then yesterday Dale and Ann came for a short visit. They were on their way from a visit to Beaver, UT.

Well we have lots to learn about our new home and job. It will be a fun new adventure.

Love,

John

Dear Family,

I wrote a short entry to my blog last week describing my job offer. Here is some more details. I got an job offer from a company in Flagstaff, AZ. The company is W.L.Gore, http://www.goremedical.com/. Gore is famous for Gore-Tex, the fabric that sheds water but breathes air. Another common product that they make is Glide dental floss. The company headquarters is Delaware. The facility in Arizona is their medical division. Their products include tubes used to repair blood vessels, patches to repair hernias, and sutures. Besides these main products they also make the devices used to insert them into people. Some of these devices are purchased from suppliers and I will be working with those suppliers to insure quality and on-time delivery.

Wednesday I called them and officially accepted. The job offer is all that I was hoping for and really shows that they value their employees. As I stated in my blog earlier two things surprised me. First they are giving me 5 weeks of paid vacation, matching what I enjoyed at Hewlett Packard the last few years. Second they are offering relocation benefits, including paying real estate fees, moving expenses and up to 3 months temporary housing. We have already been contacted by their moving company, mortgage brokers, and real estate agents. I think that our house will go on the market the week after Thanksgiving. Anyway things are moving along, a big transition.

Last weekend we took a trip to Pullman to visit Brent. We took the trailer with his castle and bed-head-board along with some of his other stuff. This past week we gathered up all of Ruth & Curt’s stuff and Lyle& Emily’s stuff and put into a storage unit. We are trying to get the house in shape so that it will show well and sell faster.

Now I have started a big project to rebuild my little trailer. The wood on it is getting all rotten and there is quite a bit of rust that I need to take care of. Last night I started taking it apart. The wood was worse than I thought and all the screws are pretty rusty. I will also buy a new axle because bearings always rust out. The places on the axles where the seals rub are all worn out so the seals don’t work and water gets into the bearings. I found some places on the web that sell axles for about $100. I thought about buying a new trailer but I haven’t found one that I like better.

This week is Thanksgiving and Brent is coming home Wednesday after work, so there will be four of us home for Thanksgiving dinner.

Yesterday at the fort I spent the time practicing making nails. The hardest part is getting the head right. I am not too good at it but I think I know what I have been doing wrong. I am afraid that I won’t be able to go too much more. A few weeks ago a fellow at the fort told me that I was holding my hammer wrong that that it would make my elbow hurt. Well sure enough my elbow has been hurting me pretty bad the last couple of weeks and it is worse right after I finish hammering. I will really miss the time I have spent learning to blacksmith. I hope that I will be able to do it again sometime.

One bit of good news – we have solved the problem of water in our basement. For many years we have had a little water seeping on the floor in the closet and hall where we keep our food storage. Well we figured where the water is coming from. There is a board right under our front door and the water was running on the front porch under that board down the inside of the concrete wall and onto the floor. It only happens when we get a wind that blows the water against the front door. Well I sealed under the board and the problem is solved. It doesn’t seem like a big deal but it was causing mold in that hallway and may have made it difficult to sell the house. Now we can clean the carpet good and no more mold or musty smell.

Well that is all the news. Sorry no pictures today. Please take care.

Love,

John