Singing in General Conference!!!

Today, we woke up early and drove in to Salt Lake and were soon seated in the choir seats at the LDS Conference Center. Janene and David Landon and I will be singing in General Conference next weekend and attended a dress rehearsal today. We will be providing the music for the Saturday afternoon session. We have been training and practicing for almost a month. There are very strict rules and we are not allowed to miss a practice or we are kicked out. I missed one practice when I had the swine flu, but somehow they overlooked my naughty deed.

It is a humbling experience to sit in those seats and to worship the Lord through song. Years ago, I had the same privilege to sing in General Conference with Dave before he died. We sang in the Tabernacle then, and Dave and I worked it out so that we sat next to each other - me in the bass section and he in the tenor section. I would never have taken on that challenge without Dave's prompting. This time, I didn't hesitate to make the commitment. I remembered the spiritual growth I experienced the last time. We are all looking forward to this experience. You can watch for Janene in the center of the soprano section. She is sitting next to a lady with the whitest hair of all the sisters. I hope someone records this for us. We would like to have a record of it. Oh, yes. You will be able to spot me easily. I will be the one picking my nose - just like in kindergarten. Arghhh! I hope I have learned something since then.

What a difference an hour can make.

After spending a week recovering from swine flu, I was fed up with being cooped up in my room, isolated even from my bride. It started out as a great idea. Why not head out for a nice leisurely stroll along the shore, sitting in a chair, sun on my face, catch a few fish, take a nap. It was an idyllic thought.

 

SO HOW DID IT COME TO THIS?

It started out innocently enough. A few sprinkles on the water. They actually helped the fishing. But pretty soon we were getting 1/2" hail and it was falling so fast, we had to seek shelter under the closest pine tree.

We were stuck with the hail falling around us for about an hour. Lighting was striking all around us, and we were afraid we were going to have to make an escape in the middle of a storm. The hail was getting deep and we were afraid that we would not be able to get the stroller over the mile long trail.

It would be a long cold walk.

Little Lily had no problem with any of this. The lightning didn't bother her. She was content to lay in her stroller with hail piling up on her blanket. We had to shake the blanket off several times to keep her dry.

Mikey liked his little nest at the foot of a tree. If it weren't for the constant crack of the lightning and the freezing wind, it would have been fine to stay there all day.

After an hour, the storm ceased. We took this as our cue to hightail it out of there. Through the whole  mile long slog back to car, we were cheered by the thoughts of the heated seats in Brooke's Honda Pilot. I should have taken pictures of Brooke pushing the stroller through the snow, slipping and sliding, falling at times, but all the time laughing at ourselves for thinking that this could be a relaxing afternoon. We knew better. Good times in the Uintas is stolen time in the month of September. Sometimes you get away, but most of the time you get caught and pay the price.

Harvest Bounty

Last week we took a little bit of time to pick some of the veggies from our garden. Janene has been picking tons of tomatoes, potatoes, onions and peppers. On Monday night we brought down about two hundred pounds of produce.

All of the plants are just loaded with goodies. Even though we had a cooler growing season that slowed things down, we made up for the slow grow by planting enough plants. The tomatoes and peppers are doing ok, but the melons have had a hard time this year. We got three or four canteloupes that were a bright yellow color.

We even got some our heirloom tomatoes to grow well this year. Here is our Mr. Stripey tomato. We just picked a few eggplants as well. I wonder what we are supposed to do with them.

Once you pick 'em then you have to eat 'em, can 'em or give them away. It has been a bunch of work for Janene the last few days. She has worked till the wee hours of the morning putting up fruit with no help from me.

Caleb Spencer Kearl is home.

I just wanted to post a couple of pictures of Caleb and his mom now that they are home from the hospital. I still think he is a pretty cute guy.

And mom is doing fine, although she is a little tired tonight. We are grateful for the blessing and joy of another little boy in our family.

It's not rocket science - or is it?

Saturday, we got to go with Angie & David and their family to David's employer, L3 Communications' Open House. Since they work mostly on Top Secret projects, this is a big deal to be able go wander through their workspaces and see the projects they are working on. Everything seems like kind of Star Wars stuff. We were not allowed to take pictures, but I got off a couple without someone stopping us.
They are working on things like this UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) called Global Hawk. This plane flies over enemy territory in a place like Iraq, but is piloted by soldiers in Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas using a remote camera feed and a joystick. And to think - we always told Shon he could never get a job playing video games. Now David does the kinds of things that make all this possible.
They had demonstrations of how an individual soldier could have real-time maps downloaded to a secure device like an Itouch during a battle to show where troops or support are needed. They had a Hummer they have outfitted with satellite communications equipment that they drop from a helicopter into an area. The springs that prevent damage to the electronics are ingenious. They would not let me take pictures of that.

The most fun of all ( well - if you don't count the hamburgers, hot dogs and root beer floats) was working on a team with Laura and her dad building a tower out of gum drops and toothpicks. We built it to be 33 -1/2" tall and after they subjected it to a shaker equivalent to a magnitude 10 earthquake (that's what they said even though that is not theoretically possible) it ended up at 33" tall still standing. We blew away the closest competition at 20" and won the contest. Every member of our team will get a U of U hat. I heard one mother tell her son " Don't worry, we'll buy you a hat. It will be easier" Sam built a rocket out of construction paper that was then launched with compressed air to about 150 feet. Maybe it is rocket science after all.

Film at 11:00 - Sort of

Here are some pictures of our newest grandson, born to Heather and Joseph ( or is it Joseph and Heather) Kearl yesterday.
The little guy weighed in at 8 lbs. 8 ounces and is as cute as a bug.
These pictures are in sort of backwards order, but here he is sleeping soundly today.
Elsie really wanted a girl, but right now he is too cute to resist.
We cannot decide whether he will have Janene's little finger or not. My money is on him developing this trait before too long.
I am so beautiful! Thanks to Crystal (Gerber) McGuire for taking these B&W pics. She has been Heather's best friend forever.
You did this to me! -but I still love you.
Grendma, Mom and Dad all together. Grandma Jane was there too!
No caption needed. Enough said.
Get used to that cry. You will get to hear a lot from him in the next little while.
Moms hate to see their children suffer.
Kaw! Kaw! This is fun!!

for more pictures go to www.crystalsbrain.blogspot.com

BREAKING NEWS!!!

I just got a call from Janene at the hospital with Heather. We have a new, healthy, and not so happy, grandson. Janene says he has to be around eight lbs., but they haven't weighed him in yet. Janene held the phone up to him and he screamed loudly in my ear. I know he has a healthy set of lungs. Heather is doing fine, but she is ready to be done with this ordeal. More as soon as we get it.
Film at 11:00 - hopefully

The Little Red Hen Rides Again - or, The Saga of the Whole Weed Bread

Janene (alias The Little Red Hen) decided that the wheat in the field across the street should not go to waste. I just thought they were weeds. She went over and picked a basket of wheat heads off the weeds and brought it home. She let it dry in our bedroom, and then she wrapped it in a sheet, whipped it around a few times, strained it to get the kernels out and finally brought our her hair dryer and blew all the chaff away, leaving only these healthy looking kernels.

She decided to do a bake and taste test with the real stuff from the store. Our weed wheat is the wheat on the right, the left side is hard red wheat from the store. She ground each up in our grinder and got enough flour to make two loaves of each kind. They both ground into good looking flour and both raised fine prior to cooking. Our weed wheat was a little lumpy in the dough form. Janene thinks it may not have as much gluten.

Both kinds baked up to the same color with no difference in baking times. Our weed bread is the one in front above. You can see it has a little bit of a lumpy look to it.

Here they are again. The weed bread is on the right and wheat bread on the left.

They both sliced up about the same and they both smelled heavenly. Just like Grandma's.
The texture of both breads is about the same, with our weed bread being just a little more crumbly, but not enough that you would be able to notice. A little bit of butter, honey and a glass of milk, and it was time to enjoy the Little Red Hen's feast. She was kind enough to share it with all of us. Now we know how to make bread from the weeds in the vacant lot across the street. I hope we don't ever really need to get our bread that way, but it is nice to know we can.

Plan Bee is not working

Alas, our bees are no more. Last week we discovered that the bees had left the hives, never to return. We have no idea what happened or where they went. They just up and flew the coop. It's a good thing we weren't planning on extracting honey this year. We would have been pretty upset to have them leave. It looks like after the bees left, other bees must have robbed all the honey because it is all gone too. If it weren't for the fact that there are very few beekeepers left in Utah, we would probably quit this apiary business. It is very hard work and it all falls on Janene. Well, we have all fall and winter to decide what to do. It's too late in the year to do anything about it now. Thank goodness we don't depend on this for our living.

Things to do in Duchesne - and Midway

The last time we went to Duchesne, we were disgusted with the whole trip - we even got a flat tire. This time, I had to work in town, so I took Janene along for the ride. I can't believe that she didn't turn me down flat. We found a few things to do in town. We went to Al's Grocery and made ourselves a couple of salads and picked up a couple of pieces of barbecue chicken. " We sell a lot of this and it's really good" had been the recommendation. It's probably the best BBQ chicken in town, by default since there is no other chicken in town. We went to a park and sat down with our lunch. To our surprise we were picnicking on the very spot where Father Escalante had camped in 1776. While the Founding Fathers were sweltering in muggy Philadelphia heat, the Spaniards had a better idea - Let's go to Duchesne and meet up with Joaquin, our trusty Ute guide. Duchesne is such a happening place". I guess there is a reason we don't speak Spanish.

After we chased a blue pigeon around a bridge over the Duchesne River, ( this pigeon would not get out of the road even when big oil trucks came rattling down the road), we headed for home. The first historical marker we came to celebrated that same crazy Spaniard. It seems that Fr. Escalante must have wandered around at the bottom of Starvation Reservoir for a while. I can just hear his guide telling him " Get used to disappointment, Senor". We drove to Strawberry Pinnacles and drove several miles past it before we realized we had. That was memorable enough that I don't think we will do that again.

When we got to Heber City, we found out that we were there during Swiss Days. "Gosh, Honey, we have to go to Swiss Days!" We did. We won't be doing that for another ten years. We did get a snow cone out of the whole experience. Next, we headed up Snake Creek Canyon past our property to the area by the big white cliffs at the top. We found an area of twisted quakies that was kind of weird, and climbed to the top of a ridge.

We had a great view of the whole Heber Valley and heard a bunch of wild turkeys ( is it a flock, a gaggle, or what?). We never saw them, though, so, to the sound of Janene making turkey noises and pulling on the loose skin under her chin, we headed down the hill to Midway for dinner. Tarahumara Restaurant - it's the best!
In the end, we did get a couple of pictures of two homes that were built by my great great grandfather, John Watkins. ( there could be another great in there) This one was one he built for himself.

The other is this one he built for George Bonner and his wife. Both homes are landmarks in the Heber Valley. As you look around town, it's not hard to find other homes he built, some for others and some for other wives. If he could see Midway now, he would probably be turning over in his grave. Every one of his homes is valued at over a million dollars today.