Fourteen Grandkids Go Fishing

 Well, it is no secret now. Sam needed some fishing experience for his Cub Scout advancement, so he called up his Grandpa. Grandpa is a sucker for chance to go fishing. The rest of the family decided to support Sam and have a little break in the High Uintas at the same time. By the way, Sam made this card to thank me for helping him fish.

 As we headed off down the trail, we ran across the troll bridge to make sure we weren't eaten up and found ourselves in a lovely meadow with wildflowers.

Pretty soon we had fourteen grandkids with their parents all at the end of the lake with nobody else around

 At first, Sam didn't know a lot about how to tie a fisherman's knot, or how to rig up his pole, but with a few lessons from Janene on types of fish, and a couple of lessons from Grandpa on knots, bubbles and flies and casting techniques, he was ready to attack the water and bring in the wily trout. Sam is a pretty quick study and has great attention to detail and in no time at all was sending out 75 foot casts.

 Before we knew it, he had caught his first fish. He was just a little bit excited.

 By the end of the day, Sam had not only caught six fish, but he had caught four of the five different species he had learned about from Janene.

Now, the other kids were not to be outdone. Elsie learned to cast as well as Sam and caught her own share of fish. Michael caught  fish too! and got a few little snaggles in the process. Cy was a pretty patient guy and the patience paid of with several fish of his own. Lily and Andrew, and even Caleb got to reel in some fish. Stephen caught the biggest fish, which was taken home and cooked by Sam. (he loved it). Janene and Brooke caught their own fish before the hail and lightning spoiled all the fun

We can say that this was a great activity for the grandkids, but in the end, Grandpa caught the prettiest fish - a blue and emerald green Arctic Grayling that was almost a foot long. I love this country. My Grandpa called it God's Country. I have been all over the world and seen some amazing sights, but the greatest times I have ever had have been with my Dad, and Grandad, and my children and now my grandchildren in this beautiful corner of the world an hour and a half from home. Janene and I first came here together the day that Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon. Janene caught so many fish that my Dad gave up fishing that day and just watched her reel them in. If Janene had not shared my love of this place, I would have been heartbroken. She will tell you she hates the place when it snows on you on the 24th of July, and the mosquitoes are eating you alive, and we have to walk out in the pouring rain, but to watch most of our family having a great time together is a priceless experience.

Phillips Family Campout 2012

 No campout is complete without good eats. Larry and his family came up with the idea to make omelets inside of onion rings and pepper rings. Holy smoke! what a bunch of work! But the proof was in the eating and we loved every different version they came up with

 Nothing like a little ingenuity. We brought the old badminton set from the motorhome along with the horseshoes. We just forgot to bring a birdie (shuttlecock for those of you who are prim and proper). So we put Janene to work and she came up with one made from some toilet paper, a plastic bag and some duct tape. Duct tape to the rescue again.

 Omigosh! Look at those eyes! (don't look at the nose)

 Two little love birds, sittin' on a bench.

 Check out her blog. I'm sure she got much bettter pictures than I did

 Of course, Cy always seems to get the dirtiest of all the kids. This mixture of charcoal, good ole' dirt, marshmallows and pine needles is unlike anything I have ever seen him do. I told him to go get cleaned up.

 Here it is,  the automatic kid washer (the Kate model). Kate worked on him for several minutes, but I think she needed a pots and pans cycle for this one.

 Here are the two baby bellies two weeks later. 

 The closest thing we will ever get to a family portrait. Just one of the kids is hidden- little Andrew in the back. Well, the babies are missing too!

 Here are a bunch of little baby robins in their Robin's nest. My, those are some hungry little critters!

 Another family portrait with one adopted son

By the end there were just a few of us enjoying the comfort of the fire, but we all had a good time. There is nothing that gives me more pleasure than to see my children and their children all having a great time together.  My own father remembers the time when all of my sisters and brother had a great time at a campout at Kalaloch Beach on the Olympic Peninsula. I felt the same at the Ponderosa campground. I know it probably can't last forever. Someone may move away from here, but I am going to enjoy every minute of the time we can all be together as a family. When we are together it's like a slice of heaven - with marshmallow, dirt and dog spit on top.

The Great Polliwog Hunt

 At our Phillips Family campout, we were just relaxed enjoying each other's company. David was reading a book, this time on architecture. He was in a relaxed vacation type mood. Otherwise, it would have been a book on the principles of nuclear fission or string theory.

Jana had gotten bored with the Oreo cookies.

Even Mikey got a little tired of riding his new bike around the campground and chasing the dogs. So Grandma Janene suggested we all go take a hike and look for polliwogs in the beaver ponds nearby.

Everybody grabbed their plastic bags and nets and headed for the ponds, but no polliwogs were to be found.

Isabel caught a whole bag of little fish, and I caught a picture of the amazing junior birdman from across the beaver pond.

Shon found a stash of about two dozen cans of beer that had been hidden for quite a while in the underbrush.  Shon demonstrated the technique for shaking up a can of beer and then spraying it out in the stream. We figured it would make the fish easier to catch downstream. Too bad that I snapped the end off my fishing pole on the way up the canyon, or we could have tried out the theory.

Mikey found a particularly peaceful spot to dip his net beside a beaver dam. During the whole excursion, we never saw a single polliwog or even a grown frog hopping about. There was lots of evidence of beaver and a bunch of newly gnawed logs and sticks, but we never heard a tail slap or were able to watch a beaver glide through the water. I did catch a few glimpses of the flash off the side of some very large trout in one of the holes. I will have to go back later.

We headed back to camp where we had a race up the hill. Since I was on my bike, I beat everyone up but Jake. Some of the kids posed on the sign at the bottom of the hill after swinging on the gate.What started out to be a great hunt ended up being a bust, but I don't think the kids knew the trip was a failure. To them and to us, it turned out to be a great adventure, another chance to create memories as a family.

Ryan David Freebairn is here!

Little Ryan David Freebairn arrived on May 29th 2012. He was a little bit early, arriving on Haven Kearl's due date instead of his own. He was born after a long, long labor with a great deal of effort from Brooke

At only minutes old, he was not so sure that he wanted to be here, but he had ten little toes, and ten little fingers and everything about him was perfect. He has a huge shock of dark brown hair, unlike his brothers and will surely have brilliant blue eyes.

Brooke worked extra hard to get this little guy here and yet she didn't appear to be exhausted once she knew that he had arrived. She was almost restful as she waited for Ryan to be weighed and checked out.

A perfect mother holding her perfect baby. There could be no better picture than this.

Happy with her fourth child, Brooke is getting ready for her heart to grow three sizes today.

Steve was here for the new arrival and loves this guy as much as Brooke. Ryan was named after Brooke's older brothers, Shon Ryan and David Blaine.

Since Stephen and Brooke have brought him home, he has become an inseparable part of our family. He now weighs almost 12 lbs and is growing fast. It will only be a few years and he will begetting married and having his own kids. This old world is going so fast that Janene and I can never keep up.

Home Remodel Project Gone Seriously Wrong

Janene decided to pull a Mikey a while back - like at least six months back, and pulled off the wallpaper in our master bath. The plan was to modernize our bathroom. It seemed simple enough. We have a very small bathroom. How hard could it be, really? A little bit of paint here and there and we would be done. So after three months of not being able to choose a color, we went to Maui with Chelane. There, we found a bathroom in a restaurant that Chelane recommended (the restaurant, not the bathroom)

The bathroom had our dark wood doors and gave us some ideas. We took some light maple wood that Shon got at closeout from Home Depot. It was sitting outside waiting to be burned in his firepit when I rescued it. I could see that it could be made to match the wood on our bedroom set. I found a SnapOn tool bench top made out of stainless steel as well as a stainless steel light fixture.

 Lowe's was closing out the sink and Janene and I picked out the tile and mosaics for the walls. I recessed our old baroque medicine cabinet and changed the frame to look more modern. We even got some travertine tile left over from Heather and Joseph's home.

 Shon gave me the ideas for the electrical outlets and switches. For Janene, I built electrical outlets into the drawers of the cabinets. Now she can leave her blow dryer plugged in inside the drawer and it doesn't clutter up the counter. We can even put the iPhones, iPods and camera battery chargers in there. If I had an electric razor, it could plug into my drawer.

 We got all done with the remodel and I took the pictures above to show what we had done. The next day I noticed that the newly installed toilet was leaking. There was nothing to do but remove it again to see where the leak was. With the toilet gone, I could see that the plumbing flange was cracked. I must have given the bolt the old Phillips turn. (that's the last turn where the bolt snaps from being overtightened - I learned it from my dad.) I had to cut the pipe from the inside and I came up with this great idea to use my small router.


Woodworking tools to do plumbing work! It seemed like such a good idea at the time. So I was lying on my stomach inside our 4 foot by 5 foot bathroom (on the new cool travertine floor). I turned on the switch and the next thing I knew, there was a rotating router (25,000 RPM) with a carbide bit bouncing around that little room, taking chunks of travertine off the floor and porcelain off the wall tile,and spreading a red liquid all over the new floor. I couldn't figure out what pipe I had cut that was full of red paint. It was only after the router had cut it's own power cord in a shower of sparks that I realized it had also taken a chunk of my hand with it.

So.... that is how I got to go see our new baby Haven at LDS Hospital - after a small detour to the emergency room. The rest of the bathroom finish was delayed another couple of weeks while my hand healed. In the end, I was very blessed to have the damage be so minor. No bones were broken, no tendons were cut and no permanent nerve damage was included in this adventure. Janene replaced the damaged tile and the toilet no longer leaks - and we finally were able to pick a new paint color. "We may not be fast, but we sure are slow".