TRIP TO MAINE AND THE VASCULAR MEETING

Dear Family,

Mom and I went to the yearly meeting of the New England Vascular Society in Rockport Maine. This society was once founded by my vascular mentor, Robert Linton with whom I was associated in practice and I was one of the early members. It has been a very long time since I went to a meeting and we went to get the CME credits for licensure,

Here is a picture of Mom at the edge of the bay; the meeting was held on Penobscot Bay and everything was so New England. The meeting was OK but it was mostly non surgical stuff. I met a member who was a resident when I was on staff at the MGH, Craig Donaldson; we published a paper together. I met some of Doug's surgical teachers at the MGH who are two generations younger than me,

What was really great was being back in Maine, the site of deer hunts, family vacations on Lake Sabeo and High Adventure trips with the Explorer scouts canoing down class II white water rivers, And of course there was the cusine! Mom and I flew to Boston, rented a car and with the GPS drove to Rockport which was a four hour drive. We stopped at Kittyport, Maine and found a great seafood restaurant. They had two 1 1/4 pound lobsters for $17.00. This has been a good year for lobsters. Also had a bucket of Steamed clams that you see in the picture. Probably 20 years since we had that treat.

The meeting was held at a fancy resort overlooking the Bay and we left the door open in the evening to fill the room with fresh sea air and it was great. The meetings were in the morning and we had the afternoons free. We discovered another great sea food place out in the bay a bit with their own lobster pots

Here is that great place that has bee there for years, Had a lobster which is pictured below; there is absolutley no sea food better than a fresh Maine lobster boiled.

Rockport and Rockland are artsy little towns and we visited the Andrew Wyeth art museum and saw where three generations of Wyeths contributed to American art,


Here is the bruiser that was good for almost two meals.










For smaller snacks, they had these Lobster roll shops that you can visit after the art exhibits. This is a junior roll and it is economically better to get the big lobster.

We stayed till Sunday. Mom caught the tail end of the Women's Conference on the Internet. Sunday morning I finished the meetings and we got to church. There was a little branch close to the Resort and Sacrament meeting was interesting and it was great to see faithful members up there in Maine. We drove four hours to Boston n and had a four hour plane ride back and it is good to be home again.

Doug and Christina went to the Western Vascular meeting somewhere in Oregon; I thin we had better papers and food.

Love, Dad

CLOSING UP BEAR LAKE

Dear Family,

Can't believe the spring and summer have gone by. Fall is in the air and it seemed like we just got finished getting the place in St. Charles, Idaho ready for the summer family use. We got up there on the Fourth of July but could not get back again. It was time to go up there but time constraints were tight so Doug, Nate, Spence, Rebecca, friend Autumn and I drove up in the Ford 250 Diesel to get the place ready for the winter freeze.


We drove up on Saturday evening after all the football games to try and do as much as possible before Sunday. These kids sports really seem to define life.

We did not stop till we got to Garden City on Bear Lake and stopped at the Famous Rasberry Shake place on the East side of Hwy 89. It is owned and run by one of our former missionaries
Taggert Hunsaker. It was good to see him again; he is married, had a child, finishing college and getting ready to apply to medical school. There is a thriving business at his shake shoppe and they are good.

We got to the place; started on the machines, backed the boat in and finally tired, the kids sacked out on the couches after watching a DVD. The photo above shows Becca and Nate with Doug in the Easy Chair. We got up and had cereal and went to the St. Charles ward up the street. I love going to church there. The person who gave our Quorum lesson was a rancher, tall, very lean, slightly bowlegged, western style suit, dress cowboy boots and large hands that have seen a lot of work. He gave one of the best lessons on Faith. I saw Idea Mae Schram there who was born in the front bedroom or our house when it belonged to the Pugmires.

She told me about the old house that stands in the middle of our hayfield. It was built there by a family in the 1920's who were destitute. It has no electricity or running water' water was carried by the pail from the hand pump in our front lawn. I am told that it is the exsact demensions of the Peter Whitmer farn house in new York.

It is in disrepair but people stop by and phtograph it. We have seen it on Xmas cards. An artist stopped and asked a neighbor if he could do an oil painting so it must have inherent charm.

Ida Mae's grandaughter stopped by the house after church. She used the old home in the field as a backdrop for her senior high school class pictures. She gave me one and her she is inside the old house photographed against the backdrop of old newspaper wall paper and she is pretty cute. I do love these people up here; no pretense and so happy.

We finally got the pick up packed and back home. I got there in time to go with Mom to another missionary fireside group which was held at the combined Bishop's Storehouse on 3rd South and 5600 West. This is the main storehouse and supplies other storehouse in the Northwest, California and South East in Florida. It is a vast operation. The curent storehouse is 450,000 square feet and they are building anothe which will give the Church 1,000,000 square feet of storage for food clothing and other potential disaster needs. The Church has 150 large semis with drivers who have Temple recomends, satelite phones, cells phones and a truck load of prepacked emergency supplies. When there is a potential disaster many trucks are sent to the area and encirlce it but wait in the back ground until needed and then they motor into a flood or hurricane area with supplies. They said it has given new meaning to the term FEMA which is short for a government agency. To the people of a disaster struck area it means, Find Every Mormon Available.


We go to Maine this week.. Oh got invited to do a fireside in the Cotbus Gemeinde while we are in Germany.. hope I can crank it out in German

Alles Gute und alles Liebe,

Mom and Dad

BUSY WEEK AND WEEKEND

Dear Family,

We had a full week and weekend. Thursday night, we had a church activity with the Elder's Quorum and the younger boys; a shotgun shooting party and pizza get together at a gun range. I love those church activities! When some of the younger guys started handling shotguns I stepped behind them as a safe place but when they started shooting traps, many were dead eyes and natural wing shooters.

Friday, we attended Elise Hubbard's marriage to Chris P. in the Salt Lake temple. She was such a little doll and was so happy. Richard Webb and Martha S. were there representing the old Michigan gang. We went to their luncheon at the Lion House and Emily came up as well. They are such a great couple.

That night we were with our Theater and Dinner Group, old Missionary buddies and wives from 55 years ago. They have this theater in the round called the Hale theater. We went to see Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance. Check out the link. It was great fun and a good Friday Night Date.

Saturday, we went to the University of Utah football game up in the box. This is a picture of the band going nuts; you can see the box in the upper part of the photo. U of U won 38-10 and it was a fun game to watch. Paul brought some of the kids including little Johnny. There are all kinds of food and drink in the box; there was a complete turkey dinner with pumpkin pie in the hall but Johnny made a bee line to Mom's great purse and started burrowing into it like a little ground hog and found, at the bottom, a bunch of lollipops so we passed those out. When Cheryl asked him how he liked the game, he said, "I got a lollipop out of Grandma's purse".

We left the game early to drive to Mapleton to attend the Saturday evening session of Stake Conference. Mike was called to the Bishopric of his ward as second councilor and I ordained him a High Priest. So proud of him and his family. Had a little dessert at his house, drove Rachel over to Emily's house to check out Natalie and a guy friend. All neat kids.

Sunday was our regular church but I had two Patriarchal Blessings in the evening in our home. We went to Cheryl and Paul for Family night. The spazz little guys finally settled down and we had a combined lesson. Paul jr. plays the church hymns so well. Mary Clare and Loren acted out the story of Elijah and the priests of Baal from the Old Testament story. Cheryl is their Primary teacher.

It is Monday and we start all over again. We will go up to Bear Lake on the weekend with Doug and his family to close up the place.

Wish you all well and remember all the expectant Moms in your prayers.

Love, Dad and Mom

MOM DOES A BACKYARD WEDDING RECEPTION

Mom' niece, Lisa Brinton, Aunt Marilyn's daughter, got married on Friday. She married Joseph Keller in the Salt Lake Temple.

They met on LDS Singles. It is great the many ways people find each other. They are a cute couple and are so happy.

Mom suggested they have their reception in our backyard. They came over and liked the set up and the work began.

Mom began to work on the garden, pulling weeds, having old hedges removed, planting more flowers, getting the waterfall going and bringing in more potted plants. The Brintons arranged for all the food using the downstairs kitchen as home base. They rented chairs, called in the desert caters, hung lights and decorated the back yard.

The guests came in the lower back yard gate and past the reception line that you see in the upper photo. The lower garden was the site of the main food, chicken salad sandwiches, fruit, vegtables and dip, and cheese and crackers.


On the upper level, there were catered desserts, wedding cake and special wedding punch. It was a neat reception if I do say so. Anywhere from 200 - 300 guests came and except for the little kids wanting to see the lion in my office and the crocodile and leopard downstairs, it was all in the backyard.

I thought we were finished with wedding reception but maybe this was also a dry run for any grand kid who may want to have a reception at Oma and Opa's. Mom and Marilyn did a great job!

Love, Mom and Dad

FOOTBALL STARTS AGAIN

Dear Family,

A sign that fall is approaching8ng is the resumption of college football. Thursday night, the University of Utah (25th placed) played Pittsburg (15th placed) at the University of Utah Rice Eccles stadium.

We were invited again to the box seats on the 50 yard line and it was great.

A lot of the fun is seeing everyone who goes there; the box next to us is the President's box where all University dignitaries hang out. Senator Orin Hatch was there and seeking re-election, came over and greeted us all with the glad hand. We waved to Elder Hales and Zwick who were up there enjoying the game.

Mom chats with all the gals who come in the box but I was there watching the game and keeping little Emily Eva warm and sharing the binoculars with the grand kids. The game was great and Utah played mostly well, the defense holding the team to short yardage. At the end it was a tie on a late second field goal by Pittsburgh and went into overtime. An intercepted pass and a field goal won it for Utah.

There was such a traffic jam getting to the stadium. This was pure Stau and it took us 45 minutes to get there and it is only a short distance from the house. It was a lot of fun.

Oh as an addendum to my last post, there are three other mothers expecting in the family. Bina is expecting. Rob called s and announced that Eva was expecting and told us Suz was as well. So congratulations to these mothers; we have such wondrful grandchildren.

Alles Gute, Dad and Mom

BECCA HAS HER BABY !!!!!!!!!

Becca had her baby yesterday. This is her fifth and I believe our 72nd grandchild. (Becca, lincensed CPA, will confirm the number)

Becca and Paul moved to Heber valley last month to live in Grandpa McEntires farm house on the family 50 acres. While there, they are renting out their two homes in Highland and St. George in an effort to adjust to the new economic milieu.

We went up there a week ago to visit and they have really done a job on the old farmhouse, fixing, painting, repairing that cute home in that beautiful valley. Becca was almost full term then and was fussing about organizing pantries, things in the house displaying definite nesting urges. Mom would always do that as well as delivery time loomed near. When Becca was born and the entire family was way except for Roy, she delayed going to the hospital trying to match up 12 pairs of children's shoes for Sunday.

Becca also had a close call on her last baby almost delivering in the car. We were worried that she might have the baby somewhere in Provo canyon making her way down to American Fork where all her other children were born. She knew the time was near and even though plans were made of a weekend baby, She started feeling things Monday evening, made arrangements to go to the hospital yesterday and after only two pushes had this cute little baby boy.

He is a doll! I though he looked about a month old. He quickly found his thumb and knew what to do with it. Becca looks so great and Paul was beaming.

She will come out on Wednesday and back to Heber. We wish them well. They will name him Alexander. All their kids names start with "A"; Abigail, Andrewn, Anthony, Austin and now Alexander. They want their kids to be all "A's".

Things are getting busy again. The vacation for students is over and I am getting requests for patriarchal blessings. We are back to our shifts in the Temple. We go to Maine this month for a meeting of the New England Vascular Society (I was a founding member) for our CME credit. October will be the trip to East Germany. Need to work in a hunt there somewhere.. it is fun to think about it anyway.

We are richly blessed as a family

Alles Gute und alles Liebe,,,Dad and Mom

OKTOBERFEST IN THE UTAH MOUNTAINS

Dear Family,

It has been a long time since the last blog post. We have been busy with family and projects.

John and Emily and their kids went camping her up in Little Cottonwood Canyon and found that there was an Oktoberfest up in Snowbird high in the canyon.

Doug, Spence, Nate, Tommy, Oma and Opa went up there with Emily, John, Johnny, Natalie, Caroline, Josh, Jake and Joseph. They do this each year, had the tents etc. We went up there to get a good bratwurst.


Well here is Opa with a pretty good brat. The look reflects the pain associated with the cost of this brat but things are more expensive at altitude.

There was a musical group who yodeled, played instruments complete with accordion, large ommpa ommpa horns and everything else you associate with German folk Musik including also Dirndls and Lederhosen. The group was pretty good and the the Alpenhorns played Amazing Grace.


Outside were booths and things one could buy. They had the World Champion Yo-Yo guy doing tricks. When Doug and the boys bought Yo-Yo's he gave a little lesson to all. Here is a picture of the gang getting lessons on how to shoot Yo-Yos.

Before going to Oktoberfest, Emily brought Johnny who lacerated his leg on a sharp rock climbing in the Hills down to Doug's house. Doug stitched him up in the living room and all recalled similar incidents when Opa sutured the kids on the kitchen table at home in Boston and Michigan. Good to have a suture set at home.

Cheryl dropped her kids off for a couple of days and called one night and asked how they were doing. I replied "I got all the bleeding stopped!" Little five year old Emily broke a dish and raised a large flap of skin on the instep of her foot and was bleeding all over the place. I put pressure on it and the bleeding stopped and I did not have to suture the flap of skin. Then there was a shout from the basement, "Johnny is bleeding in his mouth!" He bit something but that bleeding stopped. I'm not sure how you can be a parent now days without some surgical skills!

School is starting and it has been a great, wild and happy summer with a great reunion and lots of family. We are greatly blessed.

Alles Gute, Mom and Dad