SLC visit

This past weekend we went to SLC to visit LJ and DJ. We had a wonderful time, and enjoyed spending time with MJ. She is a cute baby and is growing up so fast. We were able to attend the open house for the Draper Temple. It is a beautiful temple and is in a great location overlooking the Salt Lake Valley. We also enjoyed playing their new game of Camelot. It is a fun game that we all enjoyed playing. The neat thing about the game is that you don't play against each other but as a team and try to win against the game.

We also went to Kneaders, a bakery/cafe and had the best French toast that we have ever had. It was delicious!! It was made with a special bread that they bake there. We will return there and have it again. Thanks for the wonderful visit.

No Heat!

Last Sunday night we noticed that the house was cooling down. I went to the thermostat and it was set at 71 but the temperature was 66. The furnace had shut down! I went up in the attic (that's where the furnace is) and tried without success to light it. We decided to wait until morning to call for help. We turned on the gas fireplace and started 2 electric heaters.
The next morning I got in contact with the guy that installed the furnace and he came right out. After examining the furnace he found that the inducer motor and blower wheel was not working and it had shut down the furnace. He went down to Boise to pick up a new motor but they had none in stock. He came back and told us that they ordered one but it would take 2 days to get here. He would come back Wednesday to install it.
We had quite a time trying to keep the house warm enough so that we were comfortable. Sadie our dog loved it! She enjoyed being in front of the electric heaters and the gas fireplace soaking up that wonderful heat.
The furnace guy came Wednesday at noon and installed the motor and everything is back to normal. Sadie is quite upset because her heaters are all put away. She sits in front of the fireplace and looks up at me as if she were saying, "Well when are you going to turn this thing on?"
Having something like this happen makes you appreciate the conveniences that we have in our homes.

Columbia River Gorge

Our ward here in Star was helping one of our new members move her household goods from Oregon. They needed some of the brothers to travel to Dufur, Oregon to get her stuff. I had the free time to help with this project so I volunteered. Brother Spencer and I drove one of the trucks with a trailer and Brother Marlin and his son Chris drove a small moving van. We left Friday afternoon. It has been quite a few years since I have traveled that road through Oregon. So it was kind of a new adventure for me. The roads were clear of snow but it was overcast and we ran into some fog going over the Blue Mountains. After we had past Pendleton we were right against the Columbia River with steep cliffs along both sides. It is a beautiful area that we all enjoyed. We arrived in The Dalles at 6:00 pm, checked into our motel and went to dinner at Ixalata, a Mexican restaurant.
The next morning we went with the Bishop of the area out to Dufur, which is a small town 12 miles south of The Dalles. We had to travel 8 more miles south of Dufur to the house where the sister used to live. There we picked up a piano and playground equipment. We were then informed that the rest of her stuff was 10 miles more down the road to a town called Tygh Valley. It is a very small town in the mountains. We then loaded the rest of her things on the trailer and truck. We left there at 12:00 and headed back to Idaho. We arrived back at Star at 6:00. It was great to have this opportunity to help out and to see new country. It was too bad that it was overcast and foggy for most of the trip and not really warm. Benji and I plan on going back to that part of Oregon when the weather is better and it has greened up more.

Christmas Holiday

We all had a wonderful time during Christmas vacation. Megan was able to come home and spend a few weeks with us and the family. We enjoyed having her here and hated to see her leave yesterday. We were all able to meet over in Rigby at Erin and Dales for a week during Christmas. The grandkids had a great time playing together. Erin had a house full when we were all there together. We had a great time playing games, eating and enjoying the sled out in the snow.

We came back to Boise for the New Year and enjoyed it with the Jacksons. We had yummy food and saw the new year come in together. Now that all the festivities are over and everyone is back at their own home it is too quiet here at our house in Star. We miss having family here at our home. Hope we can all get back together soon.

Early Christmas

• We have purchased a new music system for Christmas. We love it! It is a Bose system which is small and has great sound. As you can see it takes up very little space on the shelf where the old one was located. SL will not like it as well as the old one because there are not very many buttons and tape decks to open and play with. This one has no buttons, it is operated through the use of remote controls. It is a lot different than the first stereo system I bought in 1970 which consisted of a record player and an 8 track player and took up about 3 feet of shelf space. I am sure we will enjoy our Bose for many years to come.

27 Pounds of Common Cents

Benji came down the stairs this morning lugging my old piggy bank that I have had since I was little. I reached out and took it from her before she fell from the weight of it. She said that we need do empty it and do something with all the pennies. We proceeded to empty the contents of the bank out onto the kitchen counter. It took us quite awhile to empty it all out though the small hole in the bottom. Taking the pennies out of the bank reminded me of when my brother Ben and I were in elementary school and we would sneek out 5 pennies each to take to school. During lunch time after eating we would run down to the drug store in Thayne and buy us each a Charm sucker. They were in all different flavors and we loved them. The fun in buying them was that there might be a slip of paper under the wrapper saying, "free sucker". We would then receive another sucker. I remember a time when I received 4 or 5 free suckers! It was great!
I took the pennies back to the scale to weigh them. They weighed 27 pounds! We will put them all in penny rolls and get them back into currculation. We checked them over to see if there were any old ones. There were no wheat pennies. The oldest we saw was 1960. We found a few nickels, dimes and a quarter. There were a few other interesting items in it too as you can see from the picture above.

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful time during the week of Thanksgiving! We had everyone home for the week except for Megan, and we truly missed having her here. But we are looking forward to having her at Christmas time. The grandkids had great fun playing games and being together. The adults also had a fun time playing games and talking. We had good weather and were able to spend some time out side. On Friday night we had a suprise visit from Mike and Sheila Erickson. They were just on a drive up here and decided to stop by and visit. We had a great time catching up on all the news from Evanston. They were glad to have seen the girls and their families. They were disappointed in not being able to see Megan. Everyone left yesterday and it seems too quiet in the house. We really miss having them here and hearing all the fun noises from everyone.