DAVID WILLIAMS GETS THE BSA HONOR MEDAL WITH CROSSED PALMS; BRYAN GETS A SUPER EAGLE AWARD

Dear Family,

We travelled back to Michigan for a quick trip to attend a Boy Scouts of America award night.  David received the Honor Award with Crossed palms, an award for saving a life, which is the highest award a scout can receive for bravery.  Since 1927 when the award was introduced, there have been only 274 of these medals given for bravery.

The award can be given to any scout or scout leader so as David was a cub scout, he qualified. Here is David and Mom, Mary. Mark's parents also came out so both sets of grandparents were there for this event

The story began last year when Mary and her friend Aubrey wanted to take the kids to the frozen Wing lake a block from their home in Bloomfield Hills.  The kids of course ran ahead and got on the ice.  The dock which is more in the center of the lake was tethered to the shoreline but in the deep part of the lake over kids head. David's friend, Adde, fell through the ice but caught herself with her elbows, but could not get out.  David reached down and pulled her out out of the lake   Then they looked for the little brother, Hayden 2 years old, (who is a little pile of almost uncontrolled energy) and couldn't find him.  They spotted him on the far side of the dock, in the water, face down making no sounds and was a bit cyanotic.  David went out on the thin ice to pull him out of the water. The Mom's were there, wrapped the kids warmly and took them to Mary's and put the kids in a warm tub and they were OK.

They did not make much of this as it is almost routine in families to save lives or prevent major injury or harm and we did not hear about it.  The scoutmaster at church heard the story, thought it was remarkable, and sent it into the Boy Scouts of America.  They came out and interviewed everyone and checked out the site and the word came through that David would receive the highest award for valor and bravery for actions with no thought for himself.  Then we heard that the Governor, Governor Synder, of Michigan would present the award and we scheduled our trip.

There is a good video that was broadcast over local TV in Detroit after the award.  Click on this link to see the TV news clip.

This is what the medal looks like and the inscription is "for saving life".

We went to the awards dinner which was a huge deal.  There were about 350 there plus Governor Snyder.  David was the first to receive an award and what was cool that afterward, other young Eagle Scouts came up to him to shake his hand.  Proud moment for all. Most of the scout leaders had never seen this award.

But we had a "Two-fer" as Bryan received an award as well.

They flashed up this picture of Bryan receiving an Outstanding Eagle Award.  Bryan is Vice President of the Great Lakes Council which covers all of southeastern Michigan and has a great concentration of scouts.  He has given time and finances to support scouting and I think our farm has turned into a bit of a scouting camp at times.  Really proud of Bryan for this community effort.

Here is Bryan with his medallion and award.  He does a great job.

All eight of our boys earned their Eagle award and several of the grandchildren have followed along as well.  I never made it to Eagle as I could not qualify for First Class because one had to swim a certain distance and I never learned to swim,  My Father instinctively  kept us out of the New York Citty pools.  The only time I was in a pool was when I got baptized in a NYC YMCA pool.  Dad was proven to be right as later it was discovered that one source of the great polio epidemics in New York was related to swimming pools.

So we are proud of David and happy that all are well.  Proud of Bryan as well and what he does for scouting.
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I might add that other grandkids did well also.  Here is Rebecca, Doug's daughter, who is in junior High school.  She is the State Champion in racquet ball for her division.  She has a medal as well. Way to go Becky!

Here is Juju. Suz's daughter.  (We sometimes call her the Great Juge).

She had to write a biography for her English class and chose to do a biography of the Opa.  There were several sessions at night for interviews and searching through photo files for old pictures.  Just a small fraction of the stories.  She would received extra credit if she had a photo of the person she interviewed and here is the extra credit photo.  She put my missionary picture on the cover.  Neat little gal and she got an "A" for her 27 page biography.

More on our visit to Michigan later.  Love to all, we pray for you all each and every day.

Love, Dad and Mom

DOUG'S 50TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

Dear Family,

We had a great celebration of Doug's 50th birthday.

I do not remember celebrating my 50th but I did have a surprise birthday visit on my 70th birthday when the "Four Boys", Roy, Rick, Doug and Bryan, came over to Munich and totally surprised me on that birthday.

Roy started the 50th celebration and almost all came to Denver to celebrate his.  We all went to Rick's gourmet log cabin in the California woods to celebrate his 50th.  Doug has such a good time on that one, he decided to have his celebration with the Dad and the Bros. at Rick's Ranchito. Here we all are in the woods for the great get to gather.

The picture shows what happens to otherwise professional people when they hang out in the woods without the feminine influence of their wives.  Cheryl said, "If she saw this group out on one of her runs, she would be scared!" They are arranged by age: Roy, Rick, Doug, Bryan, (the original four boys), the Dad, Mike, Jeff, Rob and John.  There are four doctors, two lawyers, a BYU professor and two successful business meant in that group (all in disguise).

We drove down to this ranch in Doug's car with Mike and Roy. The total round trip was 1600 miles, ave moving speed 72 mph with a maximum of 104 mph, (Roy am Steuer with a heavy foot between Nephi and St. George with his gourmet radar detector)

The first night was spaghetti and meatballs and here we are lined up like a bunch of lumberjacks.  The food was great.

I slept well even though Rob and Jeff were up till 4AM playing advanced squad leader.  Breakfast was also great!

Here are little steaks from a Venison backstrap that I brought.  Texas venison is the best!

Rick's favorite was Bagels, lox, onions and scrambled eggs.  Oh that was good.

There was several projects undertaken.  Bryan got out the chain saw and cut down a huge dead tree.  Rob, John and Mike constructed a Navaho version of a Russian Banya or what we would call a Schwitze.  The built a Tee Pee, covered it with a tarp and brought pine boughs in to sit on.  Then they heated granite rocks with a huge fire, brought the individual rocks into the Tee Pee and poured water over the rocks.

Here they are with the structure built tending the fire heating the rocks.  They went in there several times in their nothings and had a good sweat.  Rob read that the Navahos would fast for 24 hours before doing this for a complete spiritual mind and body cleansing but there was little fasting on this trip.

Another project was building a walking bridge over this raging stream to get to the other side.  They brought long dead tree poles, stretched them across the stream and lashed them together and it worked.

Then there were two days of a Schutzenfest!  Rick set up a range from 40 to 100 yards for offhand shooting.  He and Roy had previously fashioned a 400 yard range for long distance sniping.

Here is Roy with his gourmet sniping rifle on the 400 yard range.  Rick, Doug and John went  to the 400 yard range and did well.  They have very accurate long distance shooting rifles.

We shot large bore rifles, pistols and a black powder double barrel 20 gauge shot gun pistol. That was so much fun and all were great shots including Rick who pulverized a cinder block with the 450 Alaskan lever gun.

Here is Doug after hitting the gopher at 100 yards with the 375 H&H magnum off a shooting stick.

The double barrel shotgun pistol was a hoot to shoot.  Here is Dad shooting that black powder gun,

Well after all that work and play it was time for the birthday feast.  Doug brought up a bunch of T bone Steaks and Roy broiled them Argentine style over hot coals and they were great!  Lot of protein on this trip!  Cheryl sent a birthday cake and that was yummy also,

Well after the carnivorous dinner, we watched movies, did the sweat lodge (not me) constantly cleaned up, advanced squad was ongoing and we chatted non stop,  We all had such a good time, it was hard to say goodbye.  We thank Rick for all the good eats and for his hospitality in his gourmet log cabin in the woods and wish Doug the best on his 50th birthday.

Love, Dad

OMA'S VALENTINE PARTY

Dear Family,

Mom went to a lot of work and planning for her annual Valentines party.  Everyone around here came including the granddaughters going to college!  Here are some of the kids at the table, Joseph H., Spence, Joseph and Tommy.  There is also smiling Oma with her charts for the lesson in the background. Joseph had just turned in his mission papers.

The gals took over the menu and Suz did the organizing and a good deal of the cooking.  They wanted a Cafe Rio menu even going to the restaurant supply sore for the ton plates.

Here is Cathy loading up on the goodies.  Suz made pulled pork and cooked some beans in addition to green salsa, sugar cookies and home made lollipops shaped like hearts.  Kaley did pulled chicken.  Opa prepared the taco hamburger and slipped in a little meat from the elk in the freezer.  Cathy bought some dips, Kristina brought scrumptious pies and I am sure I am leaving something out.  Mom did the fruit tray.  Rayanne did the black beans.  John did guacamole and rice,  Emily did salsa, salad and cookies. Cheryl brought rice crispy treats.

Here is Cathy with a plateful of goodies.  The family loves this Mexican menu although I am not such a super fan.  There was a ton of food and it was all consumed!  The tin plates kept the food off the floor!

While things were being prepared and during the entire time, Oma had set up a little craft room in the downstairs apartment so the kids could make valentines especially for our four grandchildren in the mission field.  Cheryl's kids stayed extra to finish their valentines and crafts. Mom gave prizes if they memorized a scripture.

While some of the prep was going on, some of us retired to the family room downstairs to watch the Super Bowl.  Here is Doug, Cheryl and Opa.  I did not watch the game long.

We had Family Home Evening,  Here is Mom's chart of scriptures relating to love.  She talked about our grandchildren in the mission field and had a map of the world with p;ins for each missionary.  If you click on the picture, you can get the scripture quotes. She did a ton of work for this.

I commented about love in the family and I believe we have this.  Everyone loves to be part of the group no mater what we are celebrating and there is a lot of intra family service going on.

Then we had dessert and there is Mike, cutting Mom's traditional layered ice cream, whipped cream cake with cinnamon hearts on top.  A life lone, classic. There is Doug dishing out Kristina's ice cream and banana cream pies.

Here are the college kids, Sarah, freshman at BYU, Hanna, senior at BYU, Madeline, junior at the U of U and Rachel who is a junior at BYU.  It was fun to get all the cousins together as well.

We want to thank Mom for planning this, organizing the event and preparing so long for this sweet time with the family and we thank all others who helped.  We all had a grand time!

We go this weekend to Caliofornia to celebrate Doug's 50th birthday with a Father and Son event at Ricks Ranchito in  California close to the Sequoias.

Love one Another always,

Dad and Mom