Dad’s Weekly Report

                                                                        27 June 2010

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

Dear Family,

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