Deep

This is just a candid shot of Jeanne taken shortly after I got the new camera. I thought you ought to see it. I think she's playing a game on the computer, or she might be doing extraction on it. . . . Looks more like a game from the concentration level.

Test Post

What you are reading here is a post to the Empty Nesters' Blog. In the Google blogger program, I found where I can have each post sent to your email. I tested it out on the previous post but only had it go to Dustin and Tamra (and a copy to myself) since they are the ones who got me thinking about it in the first place. On this one I've added a photo and I'm sending out to all of my children. If you get this by email you will note at the bottom that there is a link that you can click on and it will take you to this same post on my blog. The only problem is it just takes you to this post. If you want to see what other posts have happened recently, or the entire blog, all you have to do is click on the blog header after you are in it.

If you get this and you do not want them to come by way of email just email me or leave a comment on the post and let me know. If, on the other hand, you are reading the blog and see this, and you did not get the email and would like me to add you to the list, then email me, or leave a comment, and let me know that you would like to be added. By the way, if you ask me to delete you from the email list tell me that you are reading them anyway or that you get them by RSS feed or something so that I don't cry myself to sleep thinking that you don't care what we post on our blog. Thanx! :-)

Life is So Busy

While I was up in Oregon, Tamra and Dustin both confessed that they forget to look at our Blog. Can you imagine that??? Well, that is unless we send them an email reminder telling them we have posted something. I thought that maybe there was a way to get the blogging program to do that automatically, and sure enough it looks like there is. So, this is a test to see if it sends out an email to the addresses I put in for it to send emails when I post. Let me know if you get this.

Thanks.

Finally

I told you in the last post to watch for more information and photos on our Oregon trip. So as promised here it is. The real excuse to go to Oregon was for Anna's baptism. She was so excited and so were we. It was a very nice event and I think half her ward showed up. The next day, Sunday, Anna gave a talk in Primary about her baptism. She wrote it herself and did an excellent job. We were so proud of her. She is growing up to be a fine young lady with a good strong spirit. Speaking of strong spirit, she enjoyed getting her photo taken for the event and wanted to pose just right. She set up the one with her daddy and the one out on the grass in front of the church. I just snapped the shutter. There were several others with her best friend and they had lots of fun. Dustin and Tamra have those in their computer for posterity. Jeanne and I are so glad we got to be there for this happy event.

Oregon

Well after a spring and early summer that made us wonder if we had woken up in Oregon even when we were in Utah. So, when the weather dried up and got sunny we decided to go to Oregon. Well really we had really decided some time before because we had been invited to Anna's baptism. So the time came and off we went, or maybe since we are in Oregon now, I should say off we came. We decided to make it a little bit of a leasurely trip, and since I had a new camera I wanted to test out quite a bit.















The first day just outside of Vale, Oregon I saw a house that I just had to get some photos of.

Quite a few miles later I was driving along when I looked out to the left and saw some cowboys bringing in their horses on their four wheelers. I thought that was kind of ironic and so I went back and as I did the farrier (horse shoer) pulled up. I went up to the fence and asked them if they minded if I took some shots of them working with their horses and they said they didn't mind. So I snapped a few.

That night we stayed in the town of Burns. Since we got their fairly early I asked the lady at the front desk where there were some pretty places near by to take some photos. She told me about a place only a few miles away and said that I might even see some wild horses. As we were driving up the road she told me about we saw a large group of horses right by the side of the road. It never occured to me that they might be the wild ones she had mentioned. I took quite a few photos and it was really a little later that I figured out that they might be the wild horses. It was a realy interesting herd to watch, for the short time I got to see them.

We spent the night on a miserable hard matress and woke the next moring to continue on to Albany. But on the way I wanted to see more of the beauty of Oregon.

On down the road after the city of Bend we got into some of the really beautiful part of Oregon. I pulled off onto a side road and crossed a little bridge and found a little spot where I could get some beautiful photos. As I got closer I noticed several tiny little frogs. I had to be very careful not to step on any of them. There are a bunch of them in this photo, I counted 17 of them.

After getting past all the tiny frogs I did get some photos of a beautiful area.

We finally made it to Dustin and Tamra's house.

It makes a papa proud. Well at least we also get to see Tamra and our sweet little grandchildren.

Watch for further developments - and PHOTOS!!!

Mothers' Day 2009

I want to make it very public how much I appreciate Jeanne as the Mother to our children. She has been a GREAT example and teacher to them. They and I love her for all that she is and all that she has and continues to do for all of us. Thank you Jeanne for being a wonderful wife and Mother.

Mothers' Day, for me, is about family. We were truly blessed yesterday as all of the family that were close enough to visit did, and the others called. It was a wonderful day of family. I didn't take nearly as many photos as I should have, but there were a couple firsts that needed to be recorded. One, of course was Avery's first Mothers Day, next, obviously would be Melissa's first Mothers' Day as a mother. So we took some photos to commemorate those occasions. I doubt that Avery would remember it without the benefit of some photos.















"Oh the things a baby has to put up with for Mother's Day."

Do You Know What's Better . . . . ?

Do you know what's better than spending time with grandchildren? Not much that I can think of. We had a wonderful time in Louisville. It was so good to be with Kathryn, Trevor, Melissa and five of our grandchildren. I have to say that after we had been there about a week I started to feel sorry for Trevor, I thought how much fun it would have been to have to have my parents-in-law come and live with us for 10 days and disrupt our lives like we did theirs, but he was a real trooper and never complained . . . outloud . . . to us. I really appreciate thier patience and hospitality. We are hoping that when Trevor gets through with residency he will find a job fairly close so we can visit more often, and make our visits shorter (much shorter). We've been back a few days and settled back in. Also, one more big THANK YOU goes out to Melissa's Husband Jeff for taking such good care of Annabelle for us while we were gone. Having her there was really comforting to us and she seems to have weathered the seperation much better than she has some of our other trips in the last couple years.

Here are a few photos from our time with family the last few days before we left.

Patton Day

I told them that I didn't want to go to the George S Patton Museum at Ft. Knox, but they made me. ( Just kidding I really wanted to go.) So yesterday we went to the Patton Museum. I told my grandchildren about being in the war and Patton's life. We got to go in some model made stuff from inside a tank! ( this had some help from Hallie grandpa's grandchild. I rote most of this for him.) Hallie saw me posting on the blog so she wrote all the stuff in blue above. We had a great time and they enjoyed all the tanks. They also enjoyed stopping at A&W afterward for a burger and Root Beer and I really enjoyed spending the time with them. They wanted to hear all about my time in the Army, and then for fun we worked together and made up some funny stories.

Today - Day 5

I'm really going to start with last night. Hallie and Megan had been promised they could sleep in the room with Grandma and Granpa one night, so they picked last night. I guess the fact that they went to bed more than two hours earlier than us didn't really matter to them, but they were excited to jump on our bed in the morning. Knowing today was going to be a sunny one we decided to head to the Louisville Zoo. One of the really lucky things about our timing for this trip was that the girls are on Spring Break this week. However, every other child in Louisville is also on spring break and so every other parent in Louisville decided today was the day to take the family to the zoo. We were able to visit the holy shrine also known as the Rhino pen. I wanted to go in and pet the rhinos but the girls said that was against the rules, so no rhino petting. We didn't think the Lorakeet petting cage would be open but it was. Enjoy the photos.

Consolidation

Yesterday was a very special day. It is really the reason we originally planned this trip. It was the day Hallie was baptized and confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints. She was excited and so were we. It was a wonderful event and the Spirit was felt by all very strongly. I'm so glad we were able to come and be here with Hallie for her special day.

The reason I titled this one Consolidation is because I'm consolitating today's report with yesterday's. Today was another special day but this time for Davis. At church today he was given a name and a priesthood blessing. Again we were so happy to be here with the family for this special occasion. However, for the rest of the day it was a laaaaaaaaaazy day. I've probably taken 3 or 4 short naps. I hope I can sleep well tonight.

Enjoy the photos from yesterday. I've included a photo I took of Davis because he is missing from all the other photos, and he's so darned cute.