Dad’s Weekly Report

It is hard to believe that September is nearly over. This week was home teaching week. Last Sunday morning Bro. Langford called me up to give him a blessing before church. He thought that he was having a diabetic reaction to eating too much candy. I think it was stress. On the day before his pump went out and he had to get new batteries for both his cars.

Tuesday we went on our monthly home teaching visit. Mary’s five new miniature dachshund puppies sure are cute. They are a month old now. She is raising them to sell and it will be interesting to see if she can sell them. She thinks that she can get $400 each.

On Thursday we had a party for Bro. Langford. It was his eighty-eighth birthday. We went over to a barbeque place called Rib City. Their baby-back ribs are really good. I really like their Tabasco-cayenne-pepper barbeque sauce. Yummy. We had fourteen people come including his son. A few of us met afterwards at his house for some cake. I am including a picture of him that I took.

When we went home teaching on Tuesday I left my jacket at Mary’s place. Saturday I went to get it. Of course when I went to the door all the dogs started barking. Besides 3 adult and 5 baby miniature dachshunds she also has a large bulldog. The door was open, only the screen door was closed. Mary was downstairs so she didn’t come for a few minutes. Boomer the bulldog decided that I was a threat to the house and started barking and lunging at the door trying to knock it open. O had to put my shoulder against the door to keep it between me. It was pretty scary. I was concerned that if Mary didn’t come, I wasn’t going to get back to my car without Boomer chewing on me.

Today was Mary’s 67th birthday and we were invited to her son’s house for a party. He lives in an old neighborhood in Portland. It was a very nice dinner. Unfortunately we had to leave early to drive Wes and April back to the airport. April’s dad just retired from being a pilot for Continental. So they held a retirement dinner along with their annual spaghetti feed. We went there on Friday night. We had a nice time visiting with Wes & April and Lyle & Emily until it was over then helped them wash dishes and clean up. I should say that Sandy washed dishes and I got in the way.

Well that is all the news for this week. Next Friday we fly to Nashville for our vacation. I am really looking forward to seeing a part of the country that I haven’t seen much of. I will miss posting new letters, but I should have lots of pictures to show when I return. Take care.

It seems like Fall came the past few days. It has been cool and cloudy. Today it rained most of the day. I even wore a coat to church today. This past week we have been drying some of the fruit that we picked up on our trip. We dried most of the plums and about half of the Asian pears. I really like the Asian pears dried better than fresh. They are really sweet. Taste like candy.

It was nice to get back to the fort yesterday. It was cool and dark, just right for blacksmithing. We had a lot of visitors come, even a big group from Asia. I spent the day working on a pair of scissors. I got the pieces forged and ready to file, see picture. They are about 6 inches in length. Now I will file them smooth and drill the hole for a rivet. If I finish them right they should be good enough to cut fabric.

Yesterday I decided to start a project out in the garage. I finally started tearing out the old shelved above the workbench. I will replace them with ones that have sliding drawers like the others in built in the garage. These will be different because they will be hung from the rafters instead of resting on the floor. I did quite a bit of demolition yesterday. The person that built the current shelves sure did use a lot of nails. It is a real pain to pull them out. I guess it will be a few weeks before I will get the car back in the garage.

Work has been pretty slow this past week, despite being gone for 2 weeks. On our trip to Utah I took my computer and answered email so that I wouldn’t have a big mess when I got home. The other thing is that a couple of the labs that I support have had their budget cut so they can’t spend any money until the next fiscal year.

This other picture that I am sending is from Monument Valley. It is a monument called El Capitan. Sandy said it is her favorite and had a drive out across the Arizona border so that we could get this picture of it. It is interesting because it is a different color than the other monuments.

Friday Sandy and I went over to Langford’s to play cards. They are an elderly couple that I home teach. Last Christmas we told them that we would play cards with them once a month. They really seem to enjoy it. Then this morning, before church, I got a call to go over and give Bro. Langford a blessing. On Saturday they had a lot of problems. Both batteries went out on their two cars. Then in the morning their pump was broken and they didn’t have any water in the house. Bro. Langford had a hard night, not sleeping and feeling unwell. He said that it was because he had eaten too much candy but I think it was the stress of all the problems. At any rate he was feeling better today.

Well that is all my boring week. I home that your week was great. Please call when you can.

I am sorry that I haven’t written lately.  It seems like my letter writing time has been too busy.  Sandy and I just got back from a very nice vacation.  We spent the last two weeks traveling in Utah, visiting family and friends.

We left on Friday, 29 Aug, after work.  We drove to Baker City that night and then went to Salt Lake City the next day.  We spent one night with Paul & Jane, two nights with Wes & April, one night with Cynthia & Loyal and one night with our friends John & Dee.  Loyal hiked with us to the top of Ensign Peak. We went with Wes & April to breakfast at Ruth’s Diner.  The also took us to the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon where we found snow,(see picture). John & Dee took us to a play.  Cynthia & Loyal organized a party that Paul and his family and Wes & April came to.  It was a very nice time.

On Thursday afternoon we drove to Green River and stayed the night in a motel.  There we purchased a bunch of melons to take to Blanding.  On Friday, we spent the day in Arches National Park.  I am including a picture from there.  The little figure in the red pants is Sandy. It was a bit scary climbing around this arch.  We went on several little hikes and saw most of the famous arches.  It was some really beautiful scenery.  And now Sandy can say that she has been in Arches finally after living and visiting the area all her life.  We left there in the late afternoon and drove on into Blanding. After we got there we got a call from Greg and LaNell.  They were in Monument Valley, Greg was teaching a gun safety course.  He had forgotten to bring some materials that he needed and asked us to bring them out the next morning.  So we got to drive out to Monument Valley.  I got some nice pictures from there, one of which I am now using as the wall-paper on my computer.

While we were in Blanding we spent a good deal of time helping Candy and Philis clean out their shed.  I am happy to report that we cleaned, organized, and discarded so that they have more room and space that they can use better.  I also was asked to fix the two bottom drawers in the kitchen.  It took me a couple of tries to get them fixed but hopefully they are good enough to last for a while.  We did lots of fun things, including picking food from the garden, eating Navajo Tacos and attending the temple.  On Wednesday we were able to visit Grandma Veda and take her to lunch.

We left on Thursday and drove to Logan and stayed the night with Bodell & Mark.  When we arrived we found that Bodell had a bunch of peaches that she had to put in bottles.  So we spent a good share of the night helping her process the peaches.  She gave us 7 quarts of sliced peaches for our efforts.  The next morning we drove with them to Twin Falls and went to the new temple there.  The Twin Falls temple has only been open for a couple of weeks.  The have some very nice murals in the temple that show Shoshone Falls and the country around the area.  After we left them we drove on to Boise and spent the night with Scott & Ivy DeHart.  We left there on Saturday to come home.

We arrived home with a car full of fruit.  Besides the peaches that we got from Mark & Bodell, LaNell gave us a box of pints full of string beans, plus a box of apples and a box of pears.  Ivy gave us a box of peaches, a large bag of plums and a box of Asian pears,  We will dry most of the plums and Asian pears.
Just before we went on our trip Allen and Brent came over for a night.  We gave Allen an early birthday dinner because we won’t be able to see him when his birthday comes.  It was great to see them.  Allen is getting pretty old now, 24 years old.

I am also including a picture of the knife that I made for Brent.  I was able to give it to him when he came.

Well that is all the news.  I hope that this finds you happy and well.  Thanks to all of you who we visited.