ANOTHER BUSY SUNDAY

Dear Family.

We had a great Sunday yesterday.  We spoke in the Tongan Single Adult Ward in our Riverton Singls Stake..  I was told that the makeup was Tongan, Samoans and some from the Fiji Islands. When we arrived there. I thought i was in one of those classic paintings of the South Seas.  The young women had very dark hair that was often way down their backs below the waist.  They were all good looking.  The men were big and strong.  I shook the and of the Bishop and it was like grabbing a vise.  They were all most gracious.  The Bishop greeted the ward in Tongan and they replied in Tongan.  Mom and i gave talks; I talked about "Spiritual Navigation", Mom talked about the family as they requested.

The picture shows a young lady who came from a family of 17 children and wanted her picture with Mom.  (taken with my Droid phone). The Bishop's counselor once had a little girl who had cancer and received a blessing by Elder Wirthlin and then surgery and is doing well several years since.

They sang the closing song in Tongan in four part harmony and the Bishopric providing the bass section. It was wonderful.

I had earlier given the lesson on Elder Hales last Conference talk, "Waiting on the Lord".  It was a wonderful talk.  I figured out how to make clips of the Mp3 file of the talk and played them during the lesson.  I told them about Elder Hales as a teenager as we grew up in the old Queens ward in New York.  He was tall, handsome and a great athelete. We crossed paths in Boston as he was the Bishop of the Weston ward and we crossed paths with him again when we moved to Salt Lake.  His talk was especially poignant after having gone through so many medical problems.  We look forward to his contribution to General Conference in April.

We had a nice lunch with Cheryl and her family and participated in their Family Home Evening Then is was a dash home to do a Patriarchal Blessing and then we were tired.  We are looking forward to General Conference the end of March.  The Manwarings are coming up from Virginia and planning to stay with us.  Also had a request from one of our German friends to stay here during conference and I believe we have plenty of room.  We will also start thinking about the missionary reunion on the Friday before conference and of course there is the semi annual Fathers and Sons Barbecue after Priesthood meeting on the Saturday of Conference.

Mom and I go once a week to the Apple store  for lessons on how to use a Mac computer.  I like my Mac book pro and use it a lot and am getting used to it.  Working on photo editing at the moment.

Mom takes her iMac down there and they all know us there.  Mom is making good progress.

We will go up to Spokane for a few days to have Rob check my eyes and we will see Rob and Eva and Jeff and Tammy and all the grandkids. There seems to be quite a bit of family mobility at the moment.  Roy and Bryan were down in California and spent time with Rick at his farm in the Sierras. Some of the girls are training for upcoming marathons.  Lots of action.

We love you all,  Mom and Dad

GRAND KIDS ON STAGE

Dear Family,

This has been a bog week for some of our grand kids.  People have stopped asking us, "Tell me about your Grand kids" because the story is never ending and we tell it with such annoying enthusiasm.

We went to the Highland High School versus East High School basketball game to watch Madeline cheer lead. Cheryl's entire family was there including the sleepy kids.  It was almost like 25 0 30 years ago when we used to watch our own daughters doing High School cheer leading.  Here is a stopped shot I took of Maddie at the game (which Highland won).  She looked so pretty and athletic it was pure joy to watch/

_Emily's daughter, Caroline, had a great solo in a Junior High School musical production.  I could not go so she put on a private performance here at home and it was wonderful.  But here she is on Emily's video on You Tube performing, "I 'm Not at All in Love" from the musical Pajama Game. It is worth watching!  Caroline, where has that rich voice been all this time? Mike's daughter, Emma, is in the chorus; you might recognize her.

Well Annabelle, Cheryl's daughter was in a professional  Ballet West performance of Don Quixote.  I could not take pictures there.  She was one of the cupids and was on stage for quite a while.  She was on her toes!

Not to be outdone some of our graduating seniors in High School received their acceptance announcements to college. Douglas, Doug's son, Natalie, Emily's daughter, and Rachel, Mike's daughter all go accepted to BYU in Provo. Way to go!!!!  We are proud of them all.  We have had several of the grand kids go there already with Lexie graduating Hannah knocking out the grades there and Johnny getting ready to graduate. Mom and I are out numbered when we root for the U of U.


Let's hear it for the Grand Kids...Hip, Hip, Hooray!!!


Love, Oma u. Opa

MOM'S VALENTINE PARTY

Dear Family,

In spite of all the troubles trying to schedule events in the family, Mom organized her yearly Valentines party.and it was a lot of fun.  Almost everyone was there except for those tied up with the Church-wide ;leadership meeting and all the teen age granddaughters who were getting ready for their Valentine's date.  Even Rebecca and Paul came up the day before and stayed in our home.  Rick and Gemina came u; from California and also stayed one night.

Mom goes all out! She set u; a craft activity and has all the supplies in the world to make Valentine cards and the little girls were all ding valentines.

There was also a cookie decorating activity.  Becca baked some heart shaped cookies and many were decorating  with icing.  Here is Johnny decorating his cookie.

The down stairs kitchen was packed will little guys doing icing and cookies.  They all had a blast.

There was also a feeding frenzy  upstairs.  While the craft people were busy downstairs, the upstairs kitchen was busy cooking pizzas and chicken nuggets.  There were also the organic salad gals who made these great salads.  Cheryl brought a great salad with special dressing

The guys mostly hung out.  One of the spirited topics around the table was the forthcoming family reunion in July.  Here is Cheryl, Emily and Mom discussing some of the details.  The financing was an interesting discussion that is going on in secret emails around the family.  We will have a great reunion and I am glad that there is so much interest in the planning.  I turned it over to Doug to organize the events and the logistics are complicated.

I thought that one great suggestions was to plan a flash mob at the Gateway or somewhere because with over  a 100 expected, we could do something unusual.

Rick and Gemina came the night before and took us out to dinner at this fancy place up Millcreek canyon.

It was Madeline's birthday so Gemina spent a couple days making this great birthday cake.  There were 18 candles in the cake and it was a big day for Madeline as well.

Valentine's Day is about love and devotion.  I am pleased with the love I feel in the family.  It is wonderful to see how everyone enjoys each others company and they enjoy being together.  I also see that among the grandkids of all ages and it is such a wonderful blessing to have love and understanding in the family.  We will look forward to the reunion in the summer and there will be a bunch of min reunions before then.

Alles Gute und Alles Liebe, Oma u. Opa

BUSCH GARDEN WITH THE FLORIDA GANG

Dear Family,

We are back now but we had a ten day vacation or trip to Tampa Florida with John and Kaley and the boys. Some of the adventures are in posts below.

We had such a great time and spent several Days at Busch Garden with John, who got off work on Saturday, Grant, Garret and even Bry who showed up from Michigan for the

Romney Rally. Of course Kaley was there everyday leading the way to the various sites.

First stop is always the alligators who were always out sunning.  Speaking of sunning, it has been a warm winter in Tampa and the temp was usually 70 degrees and sunny. I had one of those scooters and Grant piled on for a ride.

Then on to the lions and pother animals.  Here is the gang with Mom at the Land Rover.  We were there one day as they were feeding tis huge tame male lion with undisturbed mane hair.  He was pretty big and I do not know how long it will take me to stop figuring out where to put the shot.  It is rare to see a lion which such a mane in the African Bush as they loose their hair on the trees and thick bush.

We like Busch Gardens; it is close to John and Ka;let, small, full of flowers and the rides are great.  Not as gigantic as Disney but has great charm.

Bry took this shot of an old Hyena checking out Garret through the Plexiglas.

There were also shows.  We went to one put on by Tony Orlando.  I think the average age of the crowd listening was pretty old but they knew all the lines from the old songs of the 50', 60's and 70's.

A cheese dog, fries and a waffle cake were not exactly in Kaley's organic list of foods but always a hit with the little guys (and the Opa).  This is a perfect park for kids and a lot cheaper then Orlando.

We had a good time with Kaley's parents also going out to dinner.  It was so fun to see Bry who took us out to dinner at this great Sea Food place where they had the best Gulf seafood.

We did all manage to get a little sick however.  I picked up something on the plane down, John got something from the ark or from me and then Kaley was ill for a day.  There is no family get together without a mini epidemic. Mom never got sick and tramped all over the park for four days.  She looks great in these hats.

In the meantime in Michigan, Al and Paul had their new little baby boy at home on the farm in front of the fireplace.

Here is the gang in bed celebrating the new arrival.

Little Charles is their eighth child and our 76th grand child.  Way t go Al and Paul!!!

We are back unpacking and still glowing the the charm of the warm Florida weather.  I have been feeling better but not quite ready to return to Temple activity although we are busy with our other callings. Mom and I will speak in the Tongan Singles ward this month.

We love you all, Opa and Oma

HUNTING WILD HOGS ON THE CHURCH RANCH

Dear Family,

One of the things John and I did was to hunt on the church ranch near Orlando. As you know, the Deseret Ranch is about 330,000 acres in the center of Florida.

You do not get to hunt there unless you are part of a hunting lease.  The Church sells about 20 of these hunting leases for huge bucks and Kaley's uncle, Randy, belongs to a groups that leases 20,000 acre section called K6.  It is loaded with game and they hunt deer, Turkey, wild hogs and coyotes.

Randy's camp has a trailer with enclosed porch and a second refrigerated box next door to age the game.  Randy has hunted there since his boyhood when his father had the lease.

We untied wild hogs as there is open season on them.  they are a nuisance  tearing up all the fields.  They are mostly nocturnal but do come out at sunset.

Last time we sat in blinds but did not see anything. This time we drove around in a truck to see if we could spot anything in the fields.  It reminded me of Zimbabwe with the lush tropical underbrush and the sand,  We spotted a huge red pig on the edge of a field 180 yards away.  John and Randy did a stalk and got into position but a herd of cows got in between and by the time then cleared, the hog was farther away and John shot low.

Randy has the eyes of an Eagle and spotted two other hogs in a field.  They went on another stalk and John smacks one pretty good, missed the running shot and they began to follow a trail but it got dark and they were without flashlights so they did not ring hone the bacon.

It was like Africa with Randy carrying the shooting stick and John skulking along at half crouch. The brush was thick and you almost needed dogs to finish the hunt.

It was a lot of fun to watch these two, I observed from the truck. Anther great Tampa experience.

Love, Dad

FLORIDA PRIMARY, A ROMNEY RALLY

Dear Family.

Well down in Tampa Florida with John and Kaley.  They had the RepubIican primary election while we were here.

The TV adds were brutal and non stop.  It got quite tiresome every minute you turned on the tube.

But while we were down here, Bryan up in Michigan. got a call from Kevin R. in Naples.  Kevin is a long time friend of Doug and Bry.  He invited him to come down and join the extended family at the potential winning rally.  So Bry flew down and came to John and Kaley and we had a mini reunion. We went to a great restaurant aunt and had some great gulf food.

On Tuesday, we went to Busch Gardens with the boys and had a ball.  Bryan and Kaley rode the "Cheetah" while we watched the kids.  They took Grant on the water ride and we just had a ball. We went back home.  John of course is working like a dog at his law firm so he could not come down with us.  We drove to the Convention Center and there were a ton of media, TV crews and supporter of all the candidates.  There was this long line of people waiting to get into the Romney room but ou had to be pre-registered and they were checking photo IDs.  Then we saw Kevin R. and Christine R., Bruce and Jane's daughter.  They put special tags on us and we bypassed the 800 waiting to get in.  We also saw Ronna R. and it has been hears since we last met her.  So we had a good time chatting about old times.

We went into this special room where they served hot dogs and big donors from Florida were there along with Miss Florida.  There were these huge TV screens which began to broadcast the primary results as they were tabulated with a chorus of cheers.

We were then ushered into this other great room where all the supporters had been seated but we got quite up front.  I saw Scott R. (our old Bishop) and his kids and waved. Mitt was announced victor and they brought in his family.  They all did a great job and I thought the victory speech was appropriate.

Here is a shot Bryan took.  Mom said hello to Ann R. The  secret service people came past us and ushered Mitt and his family out.  I hope the Republican party can come together finally behind this candidate although the process is not not over yet.

It was a surreal experience.  There were people there from Florida, Michigan and Salt Lake.  Some big car dealer from Salt Lake comes up to me and says, "I see you a lot on TV!"  "You never see me on TV"....then I thought maybe the Joseph Smith Papers interview that is shown pretty often... it was a surreal experience.  Well just down here enjoying the action of the moment. We would not have come if Bryan had not come down and invited us in.

All the Best, Mom and Dad

LITTLE GUY AT CHURCH A PHOTO ALBUM

Dear Family,

We are in Tampa with John and Kaley and their two boys, Grant and Garret,  Grant is four and Garret is two.  They are characters and a handful.  

Grant is pretty sharp as all our four year old grandkids seem to be.  He can put a picture puzzle together in the matter of minutes and not lose a piece.  They are all whizzes on the IPads and Grant is quite a photographer. 

Today in church meeting, he got a hold of Mom's iPad 2 and started taking pictures.  He is better at it than we are, seemed to know how to save them and go on to the next shot. Here are some of Grant's church pictures:  John and Opa, a picture of his Dad, John, Opa trying to give hime "the look" and one of Oma.

 Pretty good pictures a four year old with an iPad.. these are un developed. The boys are a challenge at church and Kaley gets a pretty good work out.

More later,

Love, Dad and Mom