HALLOWEEN

Halloween is here again tonight. They even closed the Salt Lake Temple so everyone could get home early.

Here you see a picture of Mom and Pete's Mom at Cathy's wild psychedelic Halloween party. We have had a ton of kids come by our Sherwood Drive home and empty all our candy supplies. I wanted to put the full mount male lion on the front lawn but was worried that someone might paint ball shoot it. It used to be pretty menacing when we placed it on our front lawn in Michigan.



Our kids, when growing up, were great halloweeners. We had so many children at home that it was a real event. I started to chart and plot their production; we first counted the number of pieces of candy they would bring in. Then we went to weighing the booty and the largest combined haul one year was 96 pounds of candy. No wonder they were so nuts.

They were quite brilliant and organized in their Halloweening approach in Bloomfield Hills. The homes were not so concentrated as here in Salt Lake so they made plans. A drawing of the neighborhood was mapped and strategies were organized. Al and Mary were the most efficient and had the greatest production.

They took two Halloween outfits; one they wore down the street and one they wore on the way back! At the end of the block, they put on Ghost sheets with holes cut out for the eyes and worked the same street backwards posing of course as new kids. They would get 13 pounds each and since we did not buy candy, they tried to make it last until Easter..I now find out.


Here we see a picture of Al's kids following in their mother's footsteps as they visited our home. It is a happy time for all.

Love, Dad

Back To Reality

Here is a picture of Emilie Eva but she was not carrying a pumpkin on Sunday

It is hard to write about an adventure every minute. We have our fair share of them but we will not be able to top the trip to Beijing for a long time.

We are getting back to normal and adjusting to the time zone changes. But last Sunday it was a challenge. I had a lot of meetings starting at 7 AM with Stake PEC. You know it is fall when you leave in the morning and it is pitch black. Then there was the Ward PEC at 8:30 with Paul. Then there were two more meetings so by the time our Sacrament meeting rolled around at 11:40 it was getting tough.

I sat on the front row but off to the side and I did not think many people noticed. I could not see Cheryl and her kids except for Jonathan as he crawled in the isle and had a ball. The talks were inspirational; young singles who were getting married. But in the last talk about 12:15 PM, I thought I would close my eyes for a second and give them a rest.

After a minute or two, I opened my eyes and there was Emilie Eva standing in front of me staring and although she did not say it, she was thinking, "Opa you should not nod or go to sleep in church." I think Cheryl sent her up to the stand. I put her on my lap and noticed some of the kids were chuckling and caught the rest of the meeting.

Pretty bad when that was the adventure of the week. By the way. I had another meeting in the afternoon, a quick trip to Cheryl's for some yummy roast beef and then a fireside in the Cottonwood stake.

Love, Dad

WE VISIT KE YANG AND HER FAMILY

In a previous post, I mentioned Ke Yang and our meeting in Vienna, Austria. We have kept in contact through the Internet and through Doug's visits to Beijing. It was a real thrill to see her again and spend time with her and her husband and little guy. Her son is 2 1/2 years old.

They have special parenting laws in China and one can only have one child. When she was pregnant she went in for ultrasound and the rule is that you do not get told the sex of the child, only that the fetus is healthy so she did not know she would have a boy until the delivery. This is to prevent family "engineering" or only having sons for children. She had prayed for a son and he is quite a little guy. She speaks to him in Chinese and English and he can count to ten in English. These kids are bright.

We spent three days with Doug and Dr. Jhang and his associates and when they left fo Xian, we had two days with Ke Yang and what a treat it was. She took us to the Temple to Heaven (see below), to the markets, to traditional resturants and explained much about Beijing. She took us to church.


Church was in this building in a entire floor. Three branches meet here. Two English branches for "Westerners" and one branch for Chinese Nationals. They meet in the afternoon at 3 PM. There are strict rules as to who can go to the Chinese branch and those who do not have Chinese pasports cannot attend this meeting. This is strictly observed. I asked a member of the English branch what was going on in the Chinese branch and got a lecture on how they do not know. But I do know that there were about 10 members three years ago and maybe 100 now attend as Chinese students from all over the world, join the church in many missions and return home.


It was great to go to church there. It is such a small world in the church. The branch president is an Austrian from Klagenfurt. "Na was denn von Klagenfurt?" "Ja klar". They set apart a coucilor in the Elder's Quorum who recognized me. He was a German from Erlangen, Germany and he knew me on our mission. The church is so great!

Here is Mom and Ke Yang out side the church. She took us around and showed us many things and spoke of their Chinese culture. We visited her and her husband in their fine apartment (after she was side swiped by a touring bus). The little guy like all children the world over rule the roost! It was such a thrill and blessing to visit Ke Yang and her family and visiting Beijing could very well be habit forming.

Love, Dad

WE VISIT THE TEMPLE TO HEAVEN IN BEIJING

Ke Yang toook us to the Temple to Heaven as you can see in the picture with its three levels of roof. It is directly in the center of the city in a straight line to the Forbidden City.

This was a temple built for the offering of sacrifice to Heaven. From 2600 BC to 1901. An Ox was slaughtered and offered as a burnt offering or sacrifice to the God of Heaven. The Emporer offered a prayer twice a year with this sacrifice. He had to fast and prepare himself for the prayer. There was a special washing and he put on special clothing and offered a prayer to Heaven for the welfare of the people, their safety and well being. the the sucess of the harvest and the good of the nation. Everything was proscribed in detail.

This is straight out of the Old Testment and it was interesting to see this Chinese twist to something that is as old as man.

This is a happy place. People gather there to feel the peace, play badmitton, do Tai Chi, and sing at a wall. What a thrill to see it.

SURGICAL CONSULTATION IN CHINA

We went with Doug and his two kids, Douglas and Rebecca, to Beijing China. Doug has been there six times and knew his way around pretty well.

He has been there for surgical training reasons. He followed the path set up by Elder Nelson and Don Doty in there efforts to train in cardiac surgery. Doug has taught carotid endarterectomy or cleaning out the carotid artery to prevent strokes. They have a huge number of strokes in China each year and many may be preventable. Doug has been showing them how to do the operation carefully and has done this for several years. He is a local surgical hero.

We went to the hospital and saw two patients. One with an occluded carotid artery and one with bilateral disease. We looked at the x-rays. Doug and I mumbled a few things together. I told him what I would do and we discussed that. We examined the patients and then sat down and had a major conference for these two cases.

The operation had not been done safely in the past but they are doing well now. Dr. Jhang, our host, said these patients were lucky because Doug would do the surgeries. One needed a Subclavian artery to carotid artery bypass and the other a simple endarterectomy. Doug emailed me that both surgeries went well and both patients are OK.

We lined up for the picture, me in a white gown ten sizes too small. I believe more people understand English. As we lined up I said, "Let's get some of these pretty girls in the picture" and there were lots of giggles.

A TRIP TO THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA

WE just had the best trip to Beijing China. We stayed for six days and it was action packed. Here you see Mom wearing her new gardening hat purchased at the great wall of China. We took the Seilbahn up to the top. Doug, Douglas and Rebecca walked to the top amidst a throng of Chinese sight seer's. What a marvel and thrill to see this great wonder!

We had the best time in Beijing. I was impressed with the city, very huge, most modern and spotlessly clean. Everyone was friendly and extremely helpful. We rode on the most modern subway, even beats the German one in Munich, and an older man offered me his seat. He must have thought I was older. People were friendly everywhere.

There were great complexes of high rise apartments. There are 15 million permanent residents of Beijing with a few million more transients.

I could not believe the traffic. There was Stau everywhere. I did not see a single stop sign and there were red lights at the major crossings. Yet there seemed to be a harmonics of flow. Everyone seemed to understand the rules, pedestrians walking in front of cars, weird bicycles calmly crossing from the right to left in front of cars, cars making a right turn from the left lane in a four lane road. I held on for "dear life" and thought we would kill at least fifty pedestrians but it never happened.

I watched the flow of traffic from our hotel room and it was like watching the flow of blood in a capillary. The red cells lining up, white cells and macrophages slipping in there and it just seemed to work. Until our friend got side swiped by a large tour bus and that was a real scene.

All in all we were very impressed by this great city and its people. Watch your back USA.

WE GET READY FOR BEIJING, CHINA

WE are going to Beijing on Tuesday. This is something we decided to do this year as Doug is going over there again. He has been to China several times and follows in the path of Elder Nelson and Don Doty who went over there and taught cardiac surgery. Doug goes over there to teach vascular surgery and indeed how to do carotid endarterectomy safely. They treat him like a local hero. He operated in Xian but we will spend a few days in Beijing with Doug and his son Douglas and daughter Rebecca.


We will also try to look up someone we met in Vienna.

At the end of our mission in Germany and Austria, The Elders down there, Elder Marcheski, called and said he had a problem. They had met a young chinese lady who was interested in finding a church and after study wanted to join ours. "What is the problem?"... "She leaves for Beijing the end of the week." Her Husband was there studying in a University in Vienna and he had completed his studies.

"Well, see that she is ready and I will come down and be there as well!" So it was and when I met her, she was absolutley wonderful and was baptized and confirmed a member of the church. She had to go back to China the next day and we have tried to keep contact with her. Doug has visited her and her husband in Beijing on previous trips. Her husband is quite a scholar and also a very good ping-pong player. She is working on her Phd.


So we look forward to meeting them and spend some time with them in Beijing.

I can hardly contain my excitement.

Alles Gute und mit Liebe, Dad

BUSY SUNDAY

Sundays are particularly busy. I start out with meetings at 7:30 AM and then attend Paul H.'s ward where he serves as the Bishop. It is great to go there; Cheryl shows up for Sacrament meeting with the kids and it is always a little family reunion.

Today we had one of those spontaneously planned dinners and get togethers. Suz and Scott came up before leaving for Mexico city where Scott has a position with American Express. They were down there finding an apartment and schools for the kids. So we had a family dinner.



Doug and his family, Al and her family, Suz and her family and Cheryl and her whole gang came over for dinner and Cheryl brought the dessert. There were 28 kids there as a few neighbors came as well. It was a joyous time. Cheryl brought a Pinyata to celebrate Loren's birthday and there was birthday cake all around.

We seem to have more kids come than we have in the Primary of our ward. Al gave the Relief Society lesson in our ward and Mom said it was great. These are such happy times.

Love Dad

LAST OF THE FOOTBALL

It was a blustery weekend. We went to two of the grandson's football games. Doug, who is a busy surgeon, was Douglas's defensive football coach. We went yesterday to watch Douglas play and Doug coach. It was a blustery day and we sat in the cold and hail and managed to see them both in action. I don't think they like the Grandpa to come because I go a little nuts on the sidelines as we did in Michigan. Here we see coach Doug and Douglas and I was proud of them both.

After a quick lunch in from the cold (of peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches) we went to Nate's game. His team does better and just walked over the competition. They are the nine year old team. It was cold and snowy but Nate's team seemed to understand the game and they did well. Here is a picture of Nate and his team and if you look closely you will see the girl that plays on the team as well.



I always thought it was good for our kids to participate in school sports and everyone did and had a sport in the fall, winter and spring. They learned sportsmanship and how to get along with team players and to work as a team. Great lessons for life.

We wish all our grand kid future athletes good luck and now a little break from practice.

Alles Gute, Dad

VISIT FROM EAST GERMANY

Sunday was very quiet. Suz went down to Mexico City to meet her husband as they are getting ready to move there. Her daughter Julianna gave me a big hug and she looks so much like Suz did at her age. She is an exact copy. Mary and Mark were on their way to California and the house was empty again for a short time.

It is hard to maintain a balance between absolute bedlam and eerie quietness here.

After the afternoon session of Conference the Kosacks came over for a visit. They are from Werda in Saxony and attend the Ehrfurt branch. It was great to meet the parents of one of our missionaries and tell them how well they did in raising their son. The Moms always seem as young as my daughters but age is relative.

The time I felt the absolute oldest was when a family came to pick up their son in Munich. They brought their grandfather who seemed pretty old to me. He came up to me and said, "You served with my father on your first mission!". They must have been a senior couple. I turned to Elder Jones and said, "Hey Elder, I served with your Great Grandfather on my first mission!" Something must have happened with time!

We had a great visit, they took pictures of the lions and leopard. They are all so talented. The Dad played on our baby grand piano.. he is the organist for their branch. They were surprised that I knew about their football team, Energiecottbus.



Here we see the Mom and Dad, der Alte Praesident, Sister and Christof. He is over here studying and interning in a construction company. When he returns to Germany, he will study towards his engineering diploma. We have a good time together.

Mom whipped up a Swiss fondue and had some pumpkin pie.
Our world is so very small in the church,, it was a great pleasure to meet this great family.

Then Al and her family came over an it is always fun. Mom whipped up another batch of Swiss fondue and as it was consumed, the fondue pot exploded on the little warmer. Remembering Elder Wirthlin's talk, we all laughed (mine was forced because there went a good $50.00 fondue pot!"

It was another great Sunday...love Dad

SATURDAY GENERAL CONFERENCE

We had family over for the first day of General conference of our Church. It is a great time; there are all sorts of reunions, family, church groups, and missionary groups. I did not go to my own missionary group that has been meeting for 50 years each conference. I went last time and saw my first missionary companion, Albert Perschon, whom I had not seen for 50 years. We did not go this time because Suz was coming in from Arizona and there would be another mini-family reunion.

Mary and Mark and their children also came from Michigan and stayed with us. The house rocked! one of the things that happens when the gals get together is a great clothing exchange. This is often fueled by Cheryl who likes to clean out her closets often.

This usually occurs in our front hall with clothes for little kids spread all over. into "outfits". I don't remember an emphasis on outfits when we had all our little kids. We were glad to have them covered. Here we see a picture of Mary and Suz exchanging clothing and recounting the history of each piece.



Becca was there with her four children so we had about 18 kids, seven and under watching conference. They were mostly five and under and we had little kids holding babies. It was a great family time. It was hard to pay attention with everyone jumping around like crazy but I finally got them settled down into individual seats for the last speaker. Conference was truly great and inspiring.

After conference, the gals wanted to make crepes and there was a bee line to the kitchen. Suz bonked her head on an open cabinet door and remembering Elder Wirthlin's talk.. we all had a hearty laugh.

I had always gone with my Father to General Priesthood meeting since I was little. When we had our family, I always took my sons and we drove to a stake center to listen to the audio version as they did not have video streams in Boston or Michigan. We have kept up this tradition. We usually went for a treat afterward and that got a little complicated here in Salt Lake as all the resturants are full with other Fathers with similar ideas.

So now, those that can, come up to our chapel down the street and we fill an entire row in the chapel. I was proud of everyone sitting there..four son-in-laws and two sons with their boys.. all in white shirts and ties..it was great. We review what they learn afterward and each remarked on something that impressed them.

Priesthood meeting was great again as well. Elder Scott talked from the heart about men being kinder in the home and more considerate to their wife. I asked my daughters whether at the Women's conference, they advised the sisters to give their husbands a little slack. "No, they say we are good!" The talks were approporiate and inspiring. Our daughters had their own program.. see Al's Blog.

Afterward we had our dinner for the men and boys who attended General Priesthood meeting. This has developed into a great barbecue and all the grandsons look forward to coming to Opa's for ribs and steaks.



One of My AP's from our German mission, Christoff K., was there from East Germany as well.

It is a great tradition and it is so wonderful to come together at conference time.

Alles Gute, Dad

Family Enterprise

Check out Al's blog. She writes about their kids business called "Happy Homemade Bagels"


A couple of years ago, the gals in our family started baking New York Bagels. Even I got good at it and there is not a better Bagel in Salt Lake City. I had to give it up because of weight considerations; but they are really good plain and covered with all sorts of goodies.

Camile, Emilie's daughter. learned how to do it and had a little business going. Becca also bakes a pile of bagels and now Al and her kids.

James,9, the principle salesman of Happy Homemade Bagels, does the weighing of the ingredients, others help with the baking. He made a little flyer and went door to door in the neighborhood and developed several steady customers. He calls them each week and asks, "Are you going to reorder Bagels this week? Can we improve our service?" They end up baking 8 to 9 dozen Bagels which is a lot of work.

IT is cool that the kids do some work. We tried to have our kids, as you all well remember, do some productive work and each did something that earned income and was worthwhile. Of all the projects, Doug and Bry did a asphalt driveway sealing project called "Designer Driveways" when they were in High School and made a ton of money and even sold the business at the end. All had jobs, some did "Designer Babysitting" and I am glad to see that the grand kids are doing the same.

Natalie, Rachele and Douglas all earned some money as movie extras this summer in the filming of "High School Musical" which was done at East High.

Good luck.."Happy Homemade Bagels" .. Love, Dad



These are Becca's Bagels