From Birthday to Basement

BIRTHDAY

Louise and I certainly enjoyed ourselves this past weekend while at the Stephenson's. The Hale Theater presentation of the Phantom was, as usual, well done. We then went to South Jordan to watch the grandchildren while Jeff and Janae were staying at a bed & breakfast. They, of course, knew the owner so they got the family rate -- Man! Their rolodex must be huge! Good for them.

It was fun to have Janae's friends come over to decorate the front of their home. Janae posted some images but I have a couple of more photos of the day.

Janae's instant garden

Louise provided some angel food cake and a bunch of candles so we had to set a local bonfire with 33 candles! It took Claire, Erik, and Janae to head off a house fire.

Before we left, we HAD to have a game of hide-and-seek with the kids -- large and small. Hint: Do not let Megan see where you are hiding. She will come and stand by you so the seeker can easily spot where you are! Also, if you don't see Claire right away, she will giggle so she is easier to find. At the end of the game, Janae went crazy and grabbed a can of spray something or other and got the kids. Evidence follows:

BASEMENT

You all know that the basement carpet has been the same forever. The wear spots were bound to get larger so we made the decision to replace at least the stairs, hallway, bathroom, and bedroom carpet. Oh, why not spend another $1000 and do the family room as well! Jared and I removed most of the carpet on Monday and Tuesday of this week. We will do Jared's bedroom, the hall, the stairs, and bathroom just before Danny Roskelley comes to install the new carpet. I am removing the wall paper from "Janae's" bedroom today. We will paint it a darker color on the bottom. I will also replace the baseboards (170 ft) in the basement as well as paint the hallway before Danny shows up. Man, I am so glad that I can relax in my retirement!

"Heidi's" bedroom -- a.k.a. the storage place

I know it is cold in Cache Valley (7F this morning) but not many people in the world can have a view like this one. I think it is beautiful. The nice blue sky (rather than a washed out blue) is complements of my new polarizing filter.

I am not her grandfather!

Remember the movie Kindergarten Cop? Well, I somewhat experienced it this week. I was at the Stephensons while they were at the clinic. The next morning (Thursday), Claire and Erik joined me for the trip north. As we were traveling out of Brigham City and just before we entered the canyon, a doe tore across the road right in front of us! I hit my brakes and as she passed just in front of the Camry, her hoof hit the underside of the front fender. That was close! She ran up the hill so all was well. We continued our journey that ended at the North Park school.
Thursday was Centers day in Louise's class. Someone might say that it is the day when cute projects are completed that teach shapes, skills, and other nice sounding things. From the perspective of a guy that has worked with adults all of his adult life, I thought it was more like careening down a four black diamond slope on your first day of skiing! As I settled behind Louise's desk with her computer for protection, Louise announced that “Mr. Peterson” can help over at the purple table. Oh great, she discovered me. It was the weaving project. We staple a piece of red paper here and then weave it between the slots of paper. When that is done, glue another red paper and continue weaving but alternating so it looks like a mat. Other than the “deer in the headlights” look from some of the children, others jumped in and started whipping that red paper through the slots – OK, so they missed some slots. In the middle of stapling and gluing, I was reweaving. Then there was Jeff who must have said ten times after missing multiple “weaves”, I need to do it FAST. If I don't do it FAST, my mom gets mad at me. Right Jeffy, why don't you just move on real FAST! Oh yes, I was also calming some of the them when the announcement was made to rotate to a new area and they were not yet done with their project. In the middle of all this, Louise came by to look at their/my work, and one of the children asked “Is he your grandfather.” Right. Kid, say that again and I will break you like a pencil! Not really, I was laughing inside. (Note: Just to prove to myself that I wasn't some old guy, I swam a mile Friday morning.) They are sweet children and I was again impressed with the incredible job that Louise does with them every day.
In the afternoon session I was once again at the boy weaving table but was gluing the blue rectangle onto the red and white mat to make a flag. I wrote their names in glitter so now I had glittering fingers, some on my pants, etc. Its a wonder what a guy does for his grandchildren. Louise also had the children sing When Washington (and Lincoln) was President. She dressed Erik up as Washington (note the photo).
We had a good time with Claire and Erik as we do with all of our grandchildren. Our only regret is that we don't see them more often.

What do those smiles really mean?

Erik "Washington" came to visit.

Louise at work with the children. She is good!

I'M HIRED

What's going on? I thought I was retired. Ah yes, retirement, when one can rework his life to one of ease and no cares. Try that, I say, and you will see a crazy man after a few months. In my opinion, you should rework your life and do something that is worthwhile and lasting. I am trying that mode with the hopes that I will be satisfied with the results as I experience it and when I look back on the events.

I took some time at the end of last year to map out a regular schedule of things at home and what I wanted to do with some volunteer activities.

My current “at home” plan looks like this:
Monday: Vacuum, personal family history efforts (3 hours)
Tuesday: Study Preach My Gospel, otherwise open
Wednesday: Vacuum
Thursday: Study Preach My Gospel
Friday: Vacuum, clean bathroom, laundry, dust

Away from home schedule is:
Sunday: every 3rd week teach Gospel Doctrine; set direction and keep things going with the ward's efforts in emergency preparedness (family emergency plan, food storage, first aid and fire prevention efforts, disaster preparedness)
Wednesday: weekly 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. Family History Center, 3rd week Noon meet with the Inflammation Research Committee at the Spendlove Research Medical Institute.
Thursday: weekly Noon-2 p.m. Serve as a volunteer SCORE counselor to help people thinking of starting a company or those running small companies with their questions, 1st week 8 a.m. SCORE board meeting.

I had three main meetings this week with my volunteer activities. On Tuesday I met for two hours at Dr. Rex Spendlove's home as he went over his ideas with me of a very much expanded research group. In typical Rex mode, his ideas are expanding at the speed of light and will hopefully eventually result in the lowering of U.S. health care costs. It is remarkable to see his mind at work. He asked me to write a grant proposal on what we can do to impact the diagnosis of ALS. The fact that I have never written a grant proposal did not phase him one bit. Man, I hate when I get challenged and I go ahead and accept it! The idea is to use the expertise of the diagnosis techniques developed by Quansys (one of Rex's companies) and team up with other diagnosis companies in a volunteer effort to further ALS work. In concert with that effort, I went to Salt Lake City on Thursday and attended the ALS board meeting. I shared with them what we are trying to do and asked for some people to contact that might help with the work. I received the name of the person who determines where grant money is used from the ALS national organization and two neurologists working on the disease. That was worth my trip to SLC.

The I'M HIRED thing was about me applying to the Family History Library in Logan. I visited with the director on Thursday afternoon and he said they would be happy to have my assistance. I start as a “newbe” this coming Thursday by trailing a trainer around to learn the ropes. I also have a CD to go through to learn about my duties. I have been looking forward to this ever since I thought about what I would do with my retirement so now is the time to dig in and start working.

The ghost of Nurse Martha

Who in the world is Nurse Martha you ask? It all goes back to the Lava Hot Springs hospital built just after the turn of the century where we stayed on Monday and Tuesday. Well OK, it is not a hospital anymore but is now the Lava Hot Springs Inn. We were told that the Inn is haunted and seen by at least the ghosts of the nurses, specifically guests have claimed to see Nurse Martha, that formerly worked there. No, we didn't see them but we did meet some interesting characters.

Let's just say that life is different in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. With a population of 700 and in the middle of nowhere, life is a bit slow in the winter. Also, from the residents that I met, their philosophies are on the left side of the scale (i.e., a blue city in a red state). Anyway, let's start at the beginning.

Louise and I needed to get away from it all for a couple of days so we took a look at Lava Hot Springs. I searched around and it seemed that the Inn would be a good place to stay. Bottom line after staying there -- I think we made the right choice. I booked the reservation then left at 10:30 a.m. on Monday for the 80 mile drive. We turned off I-15 at McCammon and drove eleven miles to Lava Hot Springs (middle of no where). I was quite impressed with the Portneuf River as it meandered through the valley -- perhaps some trout reside there. Anyway, we arrived and walked up to the entrance. OK, some paint was chipped off the door and the wood was a bit split but we walked up the stairs and it looked "like the Bates' Motel!" The 50s something owner greeted us and the check in process was rather standard other than her conversation that was punctuated with some profanities that seemed part of her everyday word usage. Hmm, oh well, nothing that I didn't hear from my uncles as I grew up. We had an old fashioned key to unlock the door, however, the key did not work from the inside. Perhaps Martin could lock the door, then climb through the window? After several jigglings, we got it to lock. The room was mostly fine -- comfortable bed, nice fancy tub -- but the "bathroom/toliet" was a nook with no door. At least we could turn up the TV. Oh yes, the TV. I tried out the TV and the VCR/DVD worked just fine but I couldn't get the cable TV to work. I muttered something about where is Jared when I can use him. I went out to Ms. Owner to ask for help and she said she did not know how it worked. Nice service. After considerable effort, I finally went in to "Setup" on the TV and moved the indicator to "Antenna" and presto, we had 100 stations. All was well. Louise was able to watch the Weather channel.

Restaurant recommendations/Dinner -- We asked Ms Owner where to eat that evening. "Oh, I hope you didn't come here to find decent food. You might want to try the deli at the supermarket or a pizza, there isn't much else." As you know, I am not one to go to fancy places, but I was hoping .... . Well, we took a walk around town (10 minutes down one side of Main and back up the other). Sure enough, they have a supermarket. I told Louise it reminded me of a slightly enlarged convenience store. We did go into the Chuckwagon Diner because it may hold some hope of a non-supermarket/pizza supper. We went back to the Chuchwagon that evening. Louise ordered a scone and a bowl of chili and I ordered a meatball sandwich (the special) with a green salad. I received my salad with the raspberry vinegaret side dressing (well, it was in a squeeze bottle like ketchup but it is more economical that way, you know, no waste in those little cups where you don't use all of it anyway!). Louise's chili was fine. After about 35 minutes we finally got our main course. It does, you know, take some real finesse to carefully open up a hoagie roll and pour sauce and meatballs over it and drop on a couple of slices of processed cheese. Louise's scone, unfortuatelly, was a bit crisp on the outside and sort of done on the inside. Maybe the deli wasn't such a bad recommendation. Truly, dinner was OK but we have had better. We were told by several guests that there was a great Thai diner in town but it was closed on Mondays. Great.

The pools -- This was all good. They have five pools ranging from 44 degrees (a small cold pool that we did not get in), two small hot pools, one medium hot pool, and one large (20' X 80'). The hot pools ranged from 100-107 degrees. We enjoyed them in the afternoon, the evening, then again Tuesday morning. While in the pools, we had conversations with a local (the resident massage therapist who was clearly one of the blue residents in this blue town) who was pleasant, and a fellow that lived near by who told us they drain the pools twice a week to clean them (bleach spray then rinse) so they don't get slimy (that's good). Louise had just told one lady that because we couldn't be in Costa Rica we came to Lava when two guys wandered by us (I had heard them speaking Spanish). Louise asked the one where he was from and he said Costa Rica! "Pura Vida!" We (mostly Louise) had a fun time visiting with him and his friend from Salt Lake City (originally from the Yucatan area of Mexico). We expressed how much we enjoyed Costa Rica and the Cancun areas. I was visiting with another couple who were from Idaho Falls and I mentioned that we lived by Logan. She said that they go occasionally go to Mendon to visit her uncle. Upon inquiring, her uncle is Wade Quinlan who was my Priest advisor. I told her how much I look up to Wade and that I frequently see him as he is a temple worker. Small world. Even though the air was around 30 degrees, we could soak then sit on the edge and feel fine with the warm vapors swirling around us. The next morning we were visiting with a couple that had been soaking at 10:30 the previous evening. They said the maintenance guy came out and without saying anything, pulled the plug to drain and clean the pool as they sat in it! They decided to get out before they got sprayed with the bleach solution!

Breakfast -- It was advertised that the Inn serves a nice cooked breakfast. It is posted that it is from 8-10 a.m. but Ms. Owner said it would be at 9:00 a.m. OK, I can live with that since we had some treats to hold my regular 7 a.m. breakfast stomach over to 9:00. We went downstairs at 8:55 a.m. and the kitchen and dining area were dark! Hey, even though I am on vacation I have a schedule to keep! (I'm hopeless). By the time Ms. Owner drove in at 9:00, a gaggle of guests were starting to form in the serving area. She flew into the kitchen and started to fix scrambled eggs. This lady has no concept of multi-tasking. She fixed the eggs, then did hash brown potatoes and put them on the warming trays that were plugged in but didn't work. She then mixed up some waffle mix and put those in. By now the eggs and potatoes were gone but gee, we need to wait for the waffles to be done. Once the waffles were out, she did not refill the grill but did some eggs. In the mean time, the juice and milk were out so one of the guests refilled them! Oh yes, the waffles need to be done and as she realized that the batter was out, Louise saw her use her finger to scrape the last of the batter out of the bowl! No wonder they tasted good. Actually, Louise said they were very good with a applesauce and nutmeg or cinnamon base. We did get through breakfast and were well filled but it was more of an experience that we had planned. After, we went out for a soak just to relax.

We did have fun. I don't know that we will go on July 4th when the population swells to 24,000 so the SE Idaho folks can see the fireworks come off the mountain. The fellow that told us about the event said the grass on the mountain side catches fire but it "just burns up to the rock wall so it is OK". All that happens in this little blue town in a red state. For interest, "The Inn" is featured in Sunset magazine in January 2009.

Ghost Nurse Martha's residence (The Inn) with fireworks hill in the background

Louise acting brave

Martin & Louise enjoying the soak The big pool (we did some laps in this pool)

Sources of light

25 December 2008

Louise and I enjoyed last evening with the Reeses in Benson. Visiting, good food, and a reinactment of the first Christmas using Chad and Janet's children as the key cast members complete with numerous songs made for a special evening. After a short stop at home we headed to the church for the 11:00 pm Lynn Thomas organ recital (5th annual). We got to bed at 12:20 am. I woke up at 7:00 then drifted off until 7:25. I got up to leave sleeping beauty additional zzzs and wandered around the house.

The early morning light was just starting to drift in the house. I picked up my trusty Nikon D300 and started to look around the house for sources of light. Some sources were common to everyday and others were united with our Christmas season. All merited my attention and I captured the images of some of them. I share them and some photos that I took yesterday as I made my daily trip to the post office.

Yep, it's still winter. Thanks for the moisture, we will need it next summer. Well, good Christmas morning Hyde Park!

How about that for a view out of the Post Office window. Yes, it is cold but no flies for a few months almost makes it worth it.

This is a free work of art. The sun, a very reliable source of light, made this ordinary weed a beautiful thing to behold.

The flag caught my attention as I left the Post Office. Not only is it a beautiful image but as citizens of our great country, it represents something, a type of light, from within us. It is sometimes difficult to describe, but we know our patriotism is real and represents a great cause.

As I was looking for sources of light this morning, I looked at the snowflake (using reflected light to look nice), and the ornament with a nice message (Let There Be Light), but I needed something more.

Once I saw the candle, I thought, "Now I am getting somewhere on this "sources of light" thing. It is giving off its own light. We need that in our lives.

I went from the kitchen to the living room. The peacefulness caused me to pause and take the sight in. It was pretty with its sources of light but even more it was loaded with memories and those things things that make seeking the true light worth it.

I looked at the tree then ....

Then I looked at what was just behind the tree and rediscovered this early Christmas morning the meaning of Christmas and the true source of light and happiness.

OUR FAMILY

The most meaningful present to tie all things together...

The Savior Jesus Christ

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2008

Mice for snacks

Here are the mice. Barbara Darley did the cherry/candy kiss one and I made the truffle ones.

Winter here and food could be scarce --- but it isn't. I have been making treats to take to the ward social this evening so I used my handy dandy "Taste of Home Simple & Delicious" book and created some mice.

It has been a varied week (pause, I need to put some clothes in the dryer and start another washer load) -- there, now where was I. Oh yes, this week. I had a great day yesterday being a consultant to Rex Spendlove's company. They are gearing up for a customer audit next month so I led them through a mock audit. They have some work to do. They said it was the most useful audit they had ever had so I made my point. I also pointed out that I had just skimmed the surface and I could help even more. I then said this was an introduction of me to them but future visits will cost them. It will be interesting to see if I am invited back.

Jared did a good job completing four home study classes and obtained good grades. He will be busy with five classes next semister but all on campus. We will miss him Christmas Eve but he will be on the Kotter farm west of Tremonton with Lisa's family.

Louise is due for a two week rest! She is wrapping up a busy December today with the junior people.

We certainly enjoyed our trip to California and Steve's visit. Some photos follow:

Sunset in "no-where" California.

The group at General Sherman.

Anyone seen Joshua?

Now that is a tree trunk!
This guy did not eat us but those yellow eyes were checking us out. (a coyote)

Steve with the family. Terri is recovering very quickly following a knee replacement.

A view from our kitchen window a little while ago --- Jared will be doing our sidewalks while I head up to do a widow's that I home teach and then help at the church. Ah, the joy of the season.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Summer has ended

I was inspired to write a bit after reading Lindsay's latest blog entry and laughing until tears came. Oh Lindsay, you are such a good part of our family! I am thinking of fishing tomorrow but it will be only the fourth time this summer because of high water then one project after another. Today was typical of my days: 5:30am worked on my Sunday School lesson for this Sunday. I fixed waffels for the family's breakfast. My outside projects included foam insulating along the foundation any possible opening that would let cold air into our home, picking all of the plums (2 X 5 gal buckets) and Johathan apples (2 bushels), cleaning up gravel along the edge of the new sidewalks (thanks to Jared for joining me) then cleaning up dirt on the lawn from digging out the grass for installing the sidewalks. I also harvested the pumpkins (4 X 15 lb), squash (24 X 5 lb), and cucumbers. I will harvest the tomatoes and peppers tomorrow because of 25F temperatures that will arrive on Friday. I will harvest the Red Delicious and Yellow Delicious apples on Thursday. The outside projects are coming to an end --- finally.















We had my Mom in the hospital for two days last week but she is doing much better. A bacterial kidney infection took her down.

We enjoyed conference week end. Richard had a hamburger fry so Rich, Robert, Dad, Nick, Jared, and I attended the Priesthood session in Mendon. Guys can bond too.

Well, some photos and I will sign off.













Janae covered the trip to Arches but I just wanted to add that I very much enjoyed the outing. I very much enjoy being with the family.














Mike Grunig, Gary Andersen, Dennis and Lee Darley and others helped with the finish work. It looks quite nice.














Logan Canyon by the Tony Grove turnoff. There were a few nice Cuts for catching.