MEXICAN INTERLUDE

Dear Family,

It started out pretty innocent: we were going to take Suz and her kids down to the Church History Museum to show the the exhibits on Pioneer Day. We walked through it and viewed all the pioneer exhibits and then went upstairs to the children s section where we found Mexican costumes that the kids could pu on and dance to Mariachi music . They donned the dresses and danced in front of mirrors with projected life sized Mariachi dancers on a screen demonstrating the steps. Well that went on for two hours and I patiently sat there not understanding a word anyone was saying but watching the kids have a ball.

Suz and her family lived in Mexico City for a year and she was back in time just enjoying the dancing and the music.

Then Suz said, "let's get a Taco!" so we drove down to 8th South and Main where there were about six Mexican Taco stands. Here is Suz,with pure delight, ordering a bunch of $1.oo Tacos and Mexican soft drinks. Apparently the missionaries down there are told to eat this and wash it down with a coke! It was yummy for a while. We fed 7 people till they were full for $14.00.

Here is the one I had which is a pork rind beef taco which was tasty going down but had a certain deleterious effect on the old GI tract.

We looked for tamales but each stand said, "Sorry, we have no Tamales today!" I think those words are in a song somewhere. Then Suz announced she could make Tamales. A mother of one of her Mexican cooks showed her how to do it.

I got on the smart phone and barked, "Find Mexican Market Salt Lake City, Utah"and sure enough one was found and the smart phone directed us there step by step. It was the Rancho Market on 33rd South.

That was a cultural experience. We were in Mexico for all intents and purposes. Suz with her fluent Mexican Spanish found all the ingredients, tamale dough (masa), the meat, the corn husks, the spices, the salsa and sauces, Mexican whole beans, spices and Mexican treats for the kids.

Here is Suz making a tamale which involves seasoning the dough, making a pocket on a moist corn husk and filling it with a meat that I prepared and further seasoned. We made a bunch of these and of course trashed the kitchen. We steamed the tamales for two hours and when we tried them, they were the best ones I ever had!

So Suz went out whole hog as they say and made, from scratch, re fried beans, Mexican rice, we had my beef tamales, special hot sauce and salsa. Here is a shot of the Mexican dinner Suz prepared from raw ingredients.

We had Mark and Mary over and also Doug and his boys devoured the Tamales. They have a taste for hot stuff. I guess when they were little, punishment for being really bad was a drop of tobasco sauce on the tongue and instead of any disciplining, they developed a real liking for hot foods. Well anyway, this was a lot of fun but the tamales were so much work and preparation, I do not think I will do that again for a while or at least until Suz gets here again.

It was a little Mexican experience here in Salt Lake,

Love, Mom and Dad

MORE BEAR LAKE, 24TH JULY

Dear Family,

I can't remember a busier July for all the families. There is girl's camp, scout camp, high adventure trips for the Explorer scouts and of course the Pioneer Trek re-enactment all over the church everywhere. Lot's of trek adventures here and also in Michigan.

So Mom and I went up to Bear lake alone on the 24th of July celebration as everyone else was tied up with teen age activities.

We had a nice time and it was so pretty. Here is a photo of the house from the field behind the garage. The field has not been cut yet and the hay is high.

We did a lot of work getting the place ready for the family visits this summer. Mom has a hard time just resting but in the evening it was very quiet; no TV, no noise and Mom and I watched Sound of Music for the first time in a very long time. We were delighted to recognize all the places in Salzburg and Tirol. It was even a bit romantic.

Emily has been up there since, now Suz and Becca with Mary and Mark coming up this week. Roy and his gang will be there the following week. The water is very high in the lake and it is just perfect there. I love it there with its peacefull rural atmosphere.

I love the front room with its rural Idaho ambiance. We talk about building a bigger place yet I feel we should preserve this bit of Idaho farm charm.

Mom and I are back to our schedule in the Temple on Tuesday and Wednesday evening. It has been very busy as the Ogden and Bountiful temples are closed and the sessions have been large. The session I was in the other day had 207 which is almost max.

We have also been busy speaking in the Young Single Adult wards in our new Stake. Those new wards are doing very well, well attended and the activity is high. Love my calling.

Love to all, Mom and Dad

FOURTH OF JULY ST. CHARLES, ID

We drove up on Saturday and found the grass was about 2 - 3 feet high. There is plenty of moisture around because of the heavy snows of winter and there has also been much rain.

The lake is very high and I have not seen it so high ever. It is unusually green.

We went to church in the St. Charles ward and half of Salt Lake must have been there also. There were two full sets of meetings with at least 1000 in each service. There was wall to wall patriotism here as all celebrated the Fourth of July. We sang the Star Spangled Banner in Sacrament meeting and America the Beautiful in Priesthood, there were talks about the unusual nature of our country and it felt so good. It was an America that I grew up in. We saw many friends there up from Salt Lake.

Sunday evening, Doug and his boys and Roy and some of his boys along with Scotty who flew out from Michigan They gathered here before going off on a backpack trip in Wyoming.

On Monday, the fourth, we cut the grass; Roy and Doug did a great job and the place looked great.

we erected a flagpole. Roy, Doug and the gang dug the hole and made sure it was perpendicular. We added a solar lighting so when lit, the flag may stay up. There were flags everywhere in this valley. Christina drove up for a day and you can see little Izzie checking out the flag.

We had a great 4th breakfast with pancakes, bacon, eggs, hash browns, pork chops and juice much like the breakfast that is served in the Paris community on the 4th. We took the little kids on rides around the field. They explored all the old buildings and had a great time

One of the afternoon activities of course was a shooting gallery off the deck at targets, water filled pop cans, reactive targets that bounce around when hit. There were contests and it went on for seven hours and was a blast. I did not have my little cannon but we managed to make a lot of noise particularly with the Tannerite.

Here you see the range complete with spotters. That is Roy in the prone position taking out clementines at 185 yards. We had fireworks in the evening and the little kids up the road layed on their lawns and watched the show.

After a great barbecue, the boys settled down to watch Mr. Bean videos. We had such a good time. Mom, Emily, Rayanne and the girls did crafts. We had a little Family Home evening as well.

We felt good about our country and its history and pray for the future. One nice thing about our little farm house in St. Charles is that there is no active TV and we did not have to listen to the news. It is very peaceful here and I love it.

More Later, Love Dad and Mom

WHOOPS AND OH DEAR!

Dear Family,

Well this is one of the adventures of last week. Mom said it was OK to post the insurance pictures and write about this.

We had been tending Paul and Cheryl's kids for a couple of days as they went back to NYC to be at Jon H's announcement of his presidential run. Things went pretty well; I g0t up one morning and cooked Crepes non stop. Mom had just come home from driving the kids all over the map. I heard a thunk from my office, Mom rang the doorbell and announced that she drove the Van into the garage smashing the door. I asked"Why?". Well she hit the accelerator instead of the brake and pounded pretty hard on the brake sending the van through the garage door. Damage to the front of the van and she could not open the driver's door. Here is a picture before the door people came to take off the entire door, motor and track.

Here is what we found when we took off the garage door.. my FJ Cruiser was pinned in the corner and we had to get a wrecker in to lift it up so we could drive it out. Van is in the garage and the Toyota is next. Notice that the refrigerator got totally banged up as well.

Mom was pretty shook up but she is ok and the airbag did not deploy. Hopefully the insurance will help with all the repairs. This is the western equivalent of the Wirthlin Demolition Driveway that we knew so well in Michigan. Our several cars were always in the driveway as the garage had food storage and motorcycles. My little Porsche was backed into several times. There was not a car we owned that did not get whacked in that driveway. One time the Insurance adjuster came to check out some car damage and one of Mike's friends who was over backed into the insurance adjuster cars denting it. Oh well, we are happy no one was injured.

Mom and I spoke is a Young Single Adult ward in Riverton today. Mom spoke on gratitude and a lot of kids came up and thanked her for her talk. I spoke on what I call "Spiritual Navigational Aids" See if you can come up with a list. Patriarchal Blessings was on the list and I spoke of that.

I banged my knee falling in the back hall so have been limping around here. We go to Bear Lake next week during our two week Temple holiday. We will be up there for the 4th of July celebration. Roy and some boys, Doug and several of his boys will be there and use it as a staging center for a backpacking trip in Wyoming.

We love you all, Mom and Dad

FATHER'S DAY

Dear Family,

On Father's Day we remember and honor our Fathers and I thought of mine. It is not a question of remembering Fathers because mine is in front of my eyes always and it seems I think of him daily.

I tried to scan this old photo of my Father, your grandfather and it did not turn out so well but you can see him pretty well. He had graduated from Harvard Medical School and finished his surgical training at the Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. There he is with his first car, an old Model T sedan with his Doctor's bag ready to make a house call. He was a surgeon but als made house calls to those who cold not make it to his office in New York of to his office in our home. We used to ride with him on his house calls and waited in the car. However the car I remember was a 1939 Dodge seven passenger and after that year they did not make so many cars.

Most of you never met my father.. some of the older boys met him and remember him. He was a great man and had an interesting and productive life. As a college student at the U of U, he was a track star as a sprinter and played varsity football for a couple of seasons. He was on the first U of U football team that ever won a conference championship. I saw this on an old football in the union building; it had on it "Roy Wirthlin, End". He went to med school at the U and then transferred to Harvard med school and graduated in class of 1928. Some of my teachers at the Massachusetts General Hospital were his classmates. He trained in surgery under a German surgical tradition at the Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City where he remained on the staff until we moved to Utah. He was a great surgeon. He married Mom when they were both a little older and had four children.

He was above all, a stalwart in the church and had a vibrant testimony of our beliefs. He was the first Patriarch of the New York Stake and served in that calling in Utah as well. He did a lot of volunteer work for the Church and was simply a good man through and through. His integrity, ethics and honesty in his profession set a great example to me. I think of him every day.

We had a great father's day celebration in our home. Doug, Emily, Mike, Cheryl, Cathy and their kids were there. It was so much fun. Everyone brought food and I smoked several slabs of ribs slowly and did a beef roast. I thought it was a more appropriate menu for Father's Day as opposed to a Vegan approach. It was great to be together; I got hugs from the grandkids and all away called.

The various age groups hung out in all parts of the house. Here are four of our great grand daughters from four families, Madeline, Rachel, Madeline and Natalie. We had family night during which Rachel played a medley of Primary songs about Fathers. We had a member of each family get up and and say something nice about their Dad. The Dad got to choose who would speak to keep it safe. I said a few words about fathers, we knelt and had our family prayer and it was a sweet moment. We simply are having joy in our posterity.

Thanks for all the calls and well wishes,

Love, Dad

WIDE OPEN SPACES OF WYOMING

Dear Family,

Well guys have to have fun too! This last Friday I was invited by the leadership of one of our Single Adult Wards to go on a level playing field maintenance expedition in Wyoming.

One of the group had interest in a large ranch in Wyoming, east of Fort Bridger. They have about 600 acres under hay and get about 2000 tons of hay each year. There are lots of groundhogs there and they can ruin a field so we tried to ease the problem. You remember how the woodchucks in Michigan used to dig up our hay field and once I lost a tire from the baler when it jammed onto a woodchuck hole.

We had this Discovery Land Rover like the one I had but this one is built! As you can see, there is a platform on top and a shooting bench attached securely. This is the Wyoming equivalent to the Florida Swamp Buggy hunting vehicles. One guy sat up there and we drove around the edges of the field and he would have us stop and then there was a lot of action. These men had vision and the eyes of eagles and could spot the little critters with naked eyes in the grass. I had a hard time seeing some of them but if they were fat and sitting on top of their mounds, I could see them. I did my shooting from a stick as it would have taken a crane to get me up there.

These were the wide open spaces of Wyoming. And as the song goes, "Where the deer and the antelope play".. There were deer everywhere and there were antelope all around. There were a lot of small antelope that could hide in 3 inches of grass. It was great to see all that wildlife.

After a successful varmit control effort, we made it back in time so I could take Mom to a dinner and Theater with our old missionary friends as a Friday night date.

The activity in the Single Adult Stake and wards is picking up. We gave our first talk last week. The Stake Presidency had made 129 new callings to get the stake off the ground. We spoke at a Riverton ward that was packed. I have been busy this month with Patriarchal Blessing to this group. It is wonderful.

Big Father's Day dinner Sunday and all are coming that live close. Ribs and roast which I
though would be appropriate for Father's Day. Love you all

Dad

PHOENIX AZ AND ALEXANDRA'S BAPTISEM

June 8, 2911

Dear Family,

The third back to back trip was to Phoenix or more properly, Glendale AZ to visit Suz and Scott and the kids and be there for Alexandra's baptism.

We had a nice flight down there and Suz and the kids picked us up. It was a little late at night and we stopped at a Mc Donalds near the airport and that was some experience. No one was sick.

We went to Suz's house and you can see this in the picture below. It is a very nice place with this big pineapple palm tree in the front.

I thought it was hot but she said it was a cool wave but it was plenty warm. Her house is great and spacious and they gave us the great room.
All the homes seem the same for miles. If one got disoriented at night, I am not sure how you would find your way home. We drove past the other house they rent out that has fruit trees in the back and Mom got a fresh lemon. We had a good time and the next day we drove over to the local Cabela's to take the kids there and do the laser shooting gallery.

Here are the kids on the hammock in the store. There is Matilda, Alexandra, Julieanna and the little guy Timmy. They were into everything in this store but we had fun and they liked seeing all the animals.

We spent the evening watching Mr. Bean videos through Netflix on my Ipad with all the kids gathered around my shoulders.

It was Alexandra's 8th birthday. She got this dress for h er birthday which matched the dress on her American Girl doll.

Her baptism was on Saturday, part of a stake baptism and you see the picutre of family just before the baptism. Matilda is clasping onto my Ipad on which I had my notes for the talk on the Holy Ghost.

We celebrated at a frozen yogurt shop and ate outside and it was hot. Suz kept saying that it was cooler weather but i learned on Sunday it was 105F. We saw Laura Nuttal there and it was great to see old friends from Michigan. Suz did a roast on Sunday and the kids acted like they never saw such a thing before. They are truly kids of the Southwest and Mexico. They spent so much time in Mexico that they are more comfortable with Mexican cuisine. We went to a Mexican market on the way to the airport and that was a cultural experience. I bought a bunch of special Tahine seasoning which goes well with watermelon.

Then there was this little Timmy who dashed around the house as spider man. the kids are all growing up and it is such a joy to watch them develop. We had a great time with Suz and Scott and they were great hosts.

Here is an interesting link to Mike (Professor Michael Wirthlin of the Electrical engineering department at BYU).

Well we are here to stay for the summer. The Single Adult stake is getting organized and I have 3 Patriarchal Blessings lined up. During the Temple Break, we plan to spend a couple of weeks at Bear Lake. We give talks in Church in a Single Adult Ward on Sunday.

Love, Dad and Mom