MOVING ON

Dear Family,

President Monsoon was in our neighborhood last week and visited Eldred G. Smith, Patriarch to the Church Emeritus.  The occasion was a half-hour visit celebrating Eldred's 105th birthday.  This is a picture that was in the Deseret News.

Elder Smith lives in our ward and comes to Church each Sunday, driving himself and his wife a few blocks to church. He got up last Sunday and gave his testimony; what a great example he has been..  I sit next to him in our Quorum meetings and he will turn and ask if I would ride up with him in this little elevator they have in our building.  Operated by a key and a little hooky, but it gets to the upper floor. I have been riding with him for several years.  He has given over 20,000 Patriarchal Blessings but he told me he released himself from giving them now.  He has been in our home a couple of times giving a fireside on the death of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.  He has the clothes they were wearing at the time of the martyrdom and are still blood stained.

We have an older ward full of former mission presidents and Temple presidents and families who have lived in the same house for over 40 - 50 years.  Last Sunday I took a cane I bought in England when we lived near London.  It was slippery outside and I did not want to fall going through the muck.  When I sat in Sunday School, a man sat down beside me and announced he was 93 and he had a cane.  He looked at mine and after a few minutes said, "Do you want to duel with our canes?" "Whaaaat" was my reply.  "Let's have a duel with our canes!" I turned a little ring in my black carved cane and began to pull out the 4 foot steel sword that was in the cane and when he saw about 6 inches of it he said, "I do not want to have anything to do with you!" I guess old guys still like to fool around. Finally had a good use for that sword cane.

Here is something you don't see everyday.  Since my cardiac incident, I have been trying to go to Cardiac Rehab.  It is a slick place with modern exercise equipment, pretty nurses and monitoring equipment.  They put on the EKG leads and monitor, EKG, oxygen levels, blood pressure and hear rate.  Better than Baley's!  I drive them a little nuts always inquiring about the quality of the "T" waves on the EKG. I have been slowly working up the time and pace and feel pretty good today and did the longest time so far without any problems.  Doug came down from his hospital rounds and took this pic. Maybe I will be in pretty good shape for Busch Gardens and the kids in Tampa FL this week.

Al is waiting of the arrival of their eight baby that is any minute but one of her Ewes beat her to it. They went out to the barn and noticed that one of their three sheep had dropped a new lamb. She called for a "new lamb consult" Al and Paul and kids are really getting into it on their farm in Michigan.

We are trying to plan the reunion for this summer and with this large family, it is getting challenging.  Mom will send an email around asking for some preferences.

Next week sunny Florida, Busch Gardens, a little wild hog hunting stint on the Church ranch down there, some good old Gulf seafood, and fooling with the kids.

Love, Dad and Mom

FAMILY HOMNE EVENING IN DEER VALLEY AS JOHNNY GETS ENGAGED

Dear Family,

I started writing Blogs a few years ago and one of my first was a report on how Johnny H. received his Eagle Scout award complete with a large live Eagle for the ceremony.  Then there was his mission farewell, then his homecoming and now his engagement.

Cheryl and Paul invited everyone to the Deer Valley lodge for a dinner and overnight stay as it was a holiday the next day. Mike, Emily and Doug and all the kids came up and there was lots of room.

We celebrated Johnny's engagement to Jeanne Wylie  who comes from West Virginia and both are students in the same year at BYU.  There will be a May wedding in the Salt Lake Temple.

We had a nice dinner and it was very relaxing.  Hats off to Paul who is one of the most patient person I know who invites this gang there and then invites us again.

Well we sat around and this is what we call "blarbing" in style.  Don't look up the word in the dictionary as it is a family invention.  There were these great soft couches into which we all sank and it is relaxation to the nth degree.

Here we are gathered for a Family Home Evening. It was Sunday evening and just perfect.  In the far corner is the Opa with Jonathan.  The other little kids sat on the fireplace and were pretty good for most of the program.

The main part of the program was hearing from Johnny and Jeanne on the details of the engagement.  How did you meet?  What were your first impressions?  What about dating?  When did you know for sure?  Maybe those are personal but the stories are always fascinating how people come together.

We knew Johnny was a goner this last summer as he stayed in our house while he did an internship at the Huntsman Cancer Center.  He told us about a young lady he was dating and seemed not impressed that we also tried to line him up in the Singles Ward.  Jeanne was away on a study assignment in India and when she came back it was pretty much a done deal. She is a charming young lady who is majoring in neuro science and hopes to become an medical PA.  We look forward to May!

The kids are already calling Emily, "Grandma M" but that is a little premature.

We will travel to Florida and see how the old ticker does down there for a few days.  We plan to take Kaley and the two boys to Busch Gardens a lot.  This will be a good year!

May Heaven bless you all,  Mom and Dad

GREAT HOLIDAYS

Dear Family,

We had a wonderful holiday season .  We had the Christmas Eve Celebration with our traditional Nativity reenactment. Here is a picture of the nativity players.  Johnny was the camel and brought in all three wise men on his back. Doug, Emily, Mike and their families and Madeline B. all came.  I read fro the scriptures on my iPad.and also commented of gift giving.  Everyone did a good job,

We had a dinner of standing rib roast and all brought the side dishes and it was great.

Emily wanted to play the "White Elephant" game that we used to do.  We used wrap up outrageous gifts that were neatly wrapped and we took turns choosing a gift from a great pile in the center if the room.  This time Mom wrapped up things from the lost and found collection. Here everyone is laughing as Nate choose a high heel shoe.  The most coveted gift was a large jar of Maple Syrup from the Franklin Cider Mills that Doug brought,

It was a lot of fun.  On Christmas after church we drove around to visit the families.  All were in pajamas even after church! Here is Doug and their Nerf Gun Xmas.  They even had a Nerf bazooka gun I think would knock over bowling pins.  We went down to Mapleton and saw Emily and Mike and their families later in the afternoon. still all were in pajamas.  Everyone had a great Xmas.

Meanwhile in Michigan. Al's kids gathered around in fancy pajamas.  Thought they all looked so great.  Al is expecting their eight child at the end of the month and they do not know whether it is a boy or a girl.

We also had visits from former missionaries.  Here is Jake Gertson
who brought a very nice young lady by. I advised him, "Er sollte weiter machen!" She is a peach. He has a graduate degree in hospital administration and works in New York City. He was one of our great missionaries who served in the office and in Austria.

Shalayne Davis dropped by with her parents.  Shalayne was one of our great sister missionaries in Germany,  She has a Masters degree and is currently in Virginia in law school.  I was I'm;ressed that she absolutely loved studying law.  She had also taught at the MTC and worked in the Provo Temple when she was there.  We had such outstanding Missionaries.

Mary Cox came by with her father after a day of skiing.  We keep meeting Mary everywhere we go; we saw her in Berlin and in Boston.  She is getting her Phd in German economic history at Oxford university in England.  This year she is actually teaching a course at Oxford and that is super impressive.  We never tire of seeing our special missionaries.

Well this post is an accomplishment of sorts.  This is the first post on my new Mac pro laptop.  I have used a PC for over 30 years and finally made the break.  I gave a stake fireside in the Grantsville Stake on Sunday.  It was packed back into the cultural hall and I used the new Mac bool.  I could not believe how easy it was to hook up to the projector which it immediately recognized.  The power point program on the Mac showed me the current slide, the notes to the slide, the nest slide and how long  I had been talking.  Mom gave a talks well and it was a wonderful evening.

This brings us up to date and we love you all and wish you the best in the New Year.  May go to Florida if I feel better.

Love, Dad and Mom