BEAR LAKE, THE GAME AND OTHER STUFF

Dear Family,

Labor Day weekend brought us back to St. Charles, ID. Mike and his family came up Friday night and we had such a good time with them. Saturday morning was the Bear Lake breakfast on the large griddle. Here is a picture of The entire gang with hash browns, eggs, pancakes, bacon, fruit and all the extras. That usually lasts for the entire day.

Mike was a whirlwind of activity. He got one of the ATV's going, got the boat ready and did a huge branch cleanup project. Those cottonwood trees shed branches like dandruff. There was of course th shooting chore. Little Michael, who is eight years old, is a crack shot and had a lot of fun. Thye went to the beach and had a great time. Rayanne prepared the best dinner which included the best bean salad I
have ever had. .

Sunday, we piled the kids in the old '75 Toyota FJ40 land cruiser and went up to church. There were two sessions of about 1000 in each meeting. It has a very rural church flair. We saw a lot of friends and other Temple workers from Salt Lake up there as well. We had a great Sunday dinner together and settled in for a great Bear Lake nap. That evening, I gave a fireside at the Tidwells who have a beautiful place up in the hills just below Fishaven. They had a lot of extended family there and it was neat.

There was a knock on the door and we were so surprised to see Keith and Jannine D. They are are good friends from Bloomfield Hills and are not retired living in Virginia. Jannine read in our blog that we would be there this weekend and stopped by. (So glad someone is reading the blog). She brought her 94 year old mother who lives not far away in Liberty, ID (a left turn in Ovid, ID). She is a Pugmire and knew our little farm there. When she was a kid, she used to pick apples in our back field. It was so great to see her.

Mike, Rayanne, all the kids and Mom worked hard to winterize the place and store everything. We still had time for a little plinking. We blew up some tannerite. We placed them over large stumps of logs and that split the logs rather well as the tannerite exploded. The idea is to shoot the tannerite with a high velocity round. It is not an explosive by itself but does it blow up when shot. There is always the deep horse laugh when it goes off! Mike and Joseph could not help but laugh when they made the shot.

Before we went to Bear Lake, we went to the U of U starting football game against Montana. Here is Opa with his U of U tie and Mary. She totally surprised us by showing up in the box. She came out to run a marathon with Cheryl and Paul. I love these surprise visits from the kids.

Pres. Uchtdorf was in the neighboring box and came over to say hello. He seems to know who I am because he always speaks German with me. The U won!

We went down to Mapleton and I ordained John a High Priest. This was a sweet moment for Emily, John and family. He is executive secretary in his ward and we are proud of him and Emily.

We go to Boston tomorrow. There is a surgical reunion at the Massachusetts General Hospital and I have not been back there for many years and it will be fun to visit old colleagues. One of our sister Missionaries, Becky C., is back there and we will be going to church with her in the rebuilt chapel in Longfellow park. She also organized a stake fireside for me to do in the Cambridge stake. We will see te Ulrichs as well. More later..

Love, Dad