I thought I would take a few minutes this Sunday to update my blog to update all of you that follow my blog to what we have been doing.  When last I left you we were in Logan and was enjoying our family there.  On November 11th, Jenn and Taurean's little Madison Ann was blessed in Sacrament meeting.  Madi was a doll during her blessing and Taurean gave a very nice blessing with lots of choice words just for her!  We were so happy that we could be there with them on this special day for little Madi.

After Sacrament meeting and before the "family gathering", I took the following pictures of their family and little Madi

Madison Ann, Jennifer, Bentley, Taurean & Jaidyn

Madison Ann in her "Blessing Dress"

In the afternoon of Monday the 12th, it finally came time to say goodbye to Jenn and her little family and headed South.  We went as far as Provo that day because Judy Lynn had some craft stores that were on her agenda to visit on our way through Provo.  We parked the MH outside of Melissa and Troy's new home.  They let us "borrow" some electricity.  They had recently had quite a snowstorm and had several inches of snow on their front yard.  But the skies were clear which allowed some REALLY Cold weather to settle in.  That night I had the furnace running and it ran practically all night just to keep us warm.

Our MH parked in front of Melissa & Troy's home in Provo

One of the stores in Provo we visited to try to find the paper Judy Lynn needs for her stamping.

We had a lovely visit with Melissa and her family.  Thanks to them for letting us "park" in front of their place.

After Judy Lynn finished the shopping that she wanted to do in Provo, we again headed south.  It was a lovely day to travel, clear sunny skies and no wind.  We often encounter wind on that road and if it is a cross-wind, the "sail-like" profile of the MH makes driving a little less enjoyable.  But that day was perfect weather for traveling and we really enjoyed the day.  We got away from snow on the ground about half-way through Utah.  We had planned to stay in Las Vegas for the evening, but those plans did not work out so we went on to Boulder to a RV Park that we has stayed at a couple of years ago.

After we parked the MH, we unhooked the Terrain and drove it into Boulder to look around and get us some dinner at their Taco Bell (And yes I know... that was a very original choice of restaurants in a far-away town!)

The next morning we headed for Phoenix.

New bridge over Colorado River & Lake Mead before the bridge.
The picture of the bridge does not do it justice.  I think it is an engineering marvel!

 
MH parked to the side of Jeff & Becky's

It took us most of the day to get to Jeff and Becky's.  We did stop before we got there to fill the MH with Fuel.  The fuel price was so much less expensive than anywhere we have experienced the trip, so I decided to fill up in case the price went up for Thanksgiving.  We arrived at Jeff's before he got home from his work.

Shauna & Her Mom - Judy Lynn, Shauna, Jeff & Becky

AS most of  you know, Shauna moved to the Phoenix area a month or so ago.  She transferred with Wal-Mart, so had a job waiting for her when she arrived.  She lives in Mesa and works at the Wal-Mart on the boarder between Mesa and Gilbert.  She did not have to work that following Sunday, so came and spent the weekend with us at Jeff's.

Jeff and his Brother-in-Law Josh at the shooting range

Jeff arranged with his Brother-in-Law (another Josh) to take me to a shooting range and shoot some pistols.  It was quite a ways SE of Maricopa and was a nice range.  It was covered (from the sun) with several shooting stations.  The three of us went through a lot of ammo!  Thanks for the fun guys!

We had quite an "uneventful" week prior to Thanksgiving.  Both Jeff and Becky have to work, so we just spent what time we could with them.  Judy Lynn and I drove out to San Tan Valley to visit our good friends Grant & Colleen.  They purchased a home there a little over a year ago and now spend their winters there.  Colleen's Sister LaNae also purchased a home just around the corner and down the street from theirs, and LaNae and Niel joined us and we had a lovely dinner together at a Chinese Buffet (they had steamed shrimp... so I was a happy camper!)

We were invited to enjoy Thanksgiving with the Widmer Family.  There were lots of them there along with some family members (in-laws) that we had not met until that day.  They put on a very nice dinner.

Grant, Niel, LaNae, Beth (Grant's Sister), Colleen,
Krista, Jeff, Judy Lynn & Gene (Widmer... Grant's Brother and our Jacki's Dad)

After Thanksgiving dinner, Grant brought out his "Train" to give the kids a ride.
The kids LOVE this (as well as some of the adults!)

Thanks Widmers for inviting us and sharing the day with us.  You are truly good friends and we love (and have loved) being so close to you and your family!

When the kids were growing up we had a tradition that I would cook a nice breakfast on Saturday mornings.  Breakfast is probably my favorite meal and I have a myriad of choices to my liking.  One of Jeff's favorite gowning up was "Egg-al-a- Golden Rod", so one of his requests of my visit here was to make that breakfast for him.  So yesterday morning (and yes... it was a Saturday) I fixed the meal for him.

Egg-al-a-Golden Rod, with Sausage on the side.

On Friday I went for a walk around Jeff and Becky's neighborhood and took these pictures:

I walked over to their HOA pool and playground area.  I was interested in this because I have been trying to get
The HOA where we live in Gresham to improve some of our facilities.  It seemed warm enough to swim in the pool,
but Jeff says the water is awfully cold this time of year... which answers why no one was in the area.

Today is Sunday and we are having another Thanksgiving Dinner today for Becky.  She had to work on Thanksgiving day, so she has invited her brother and some of her friends here for Turkey and the works.  Judy Lynn made three pumpkin and two cherry-O-cream pies yesterday, so it should be nice.

So that pretty well catches you all up on what we have been doing.  We are REALLY enjoying the SUNSHINE.  Our kids in Oregon have been telling us that they have had LOTS of rain... and with encouragement (not) like that, the sunshine down her seems pretty nice.  We may leave this week some time, but have not set a date for sure.  Stay tuned and I will try to let you know when our plans develop.

It is Saturday mid-afternoon and I am sitting out in the motorhome thinking I ought to get this family letter written.  It has been a week and a half since I updated this blog, so thought that I would do that along with the family letter.

Let's see, my last blog update was just before Halloween, so I ought to post a couple of pictures of Jenn's kids and their Halloween outfits.

Jayden and Bentley in their "outfits"
(I would post a picture of me and my costume... but it is the scary one that I have to wear ALL THE TIME!

We left Richmond and headed for Bear Lake the day after Halloween (Thursday, Nov. 1st).  On the way through Logan we stopped and visited with our good friends Loran and Marcile (Hirschi).  While visiting with them I took a couple of pictures:

Marcile & Loran

I posted the picture on the right on Facebook and got so many comments about them not looking "happy" or "liking each other" that I had to correct things, so I took the picture on the left... which brought much more positive comments.

We had a much nicer ride through the canyon than I had a week earlier.  Fall leaves were mostly gone, but I have always thought that the canyon was pretty anyway.

The left picture was just as  you got a view of Beautiful Bear Lake as you come down from the top.
The right picture was taken my first trip to Bear Lake a little over a week before.

This trip to St. Charles, I parked the motorhome over on Dallas and Theresa's driveway.  They were leaving with their family to visit Disneyland, so they just let me take over.

Motorhome Parked in Dallas' driveway.
Pretty well took up the whole thing!

Mom's home this visit verses my previous trip!

Before Dallas left, I helped him mow the lawns... mostly just picking up the leaves.  Looked pretty good when we got finished.

 
Mom's large lawn to the South -  Me on the mower (toy!).

The Friday before Dallas and Theresa left we had an impromptu dinner over at the Paris Cafe.  Both Maxine and David had been working all day, but agreed to meet us on their way home from work, so Mom, Dallas, Theresa, Judy Lynn and I piled into our Terrain (kinda squished) and "motored" to Paris to meet them.  So sorry Brent and Jan, would like to have had you included... but things happened too fast and not time to recover after because Dallas and Theresa left the next morning and did not get back until after we had gone.

Mom, Maxine, David, Dallas, Theresa, Judy Lynn & Me

We tried to spend as much time as we could with Mom.  We took her to Montpelier one day, to Logan another, and back to Montpelier on another day.  We also tried to see Maxine and David as often as we could.  We went over to Maxine's and watched her fix Mom's hair.  She still looks really good, don't you think!

 
Maxine Fixing Mom's hair -- and the "Final" look at the end of the project.

I fixed Mom Breakfast almost every morning.
This morning was scrambled eggs and toast.

This morning was bacon, easy-over eggs, toast, home-made raspberry jam, orange juice and Milk.
She looked pretty happy!

We left Bear Lake for Malad on Tuesday (election day) and drove straight through to Malad, only stopping in Logan to pick up some flowers to put on  Ashley's & Dad and Mom Alder's graves.

 
Motor home parked in the lane to the side of Mom Alder's Home.

Ashley's Beautiful Head-Stone

Mom & Dad Alder's Headstone

We stayed in Malad until Friday morning and worked most of the time in Mom Alder's house.  We spent most of our time cleaning out just one of the upstairs bedrooms.  Didn't find anything too interesting... not hidden treasures that I could ascertain... DANG.  We visited with Jeff, Wendy and Jennie Ann each evening and got to see Logan for a few seconds on the last night.  We were going to spend most of Friday working in the house, but woke up that morning to HUGE snowflakes falling and decided we needed to get to Richmond before the snow started sticking on the roads, so we cleaned up our mess the best we could, buttoned up the MH for travel and was on our way before 11:00... pretty early for us.

Leaving Jeff & Wendy's driveway.
The big white specks all over the picture are HUGE snowflakes.

Motorhome parked back at Jenn's

We drove straight to Richmond through Logan, but by the time we got to the Logan valley, the snow was coming down as rain.  It was forecasting snow though, so when I parked the MH at Jenns, we did not put the large front slides out so I would not have to crawl up on top to remove snow in the morning.  And they were right, not much snow, but enough to cover my satellite dome to block out TV

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Last evening we made our last visit to Golden Corral and their shrimp for a while.  We do not have a Golden Corral or a Chuck-rama in Oregon, so I have to take advantage of it while I am here.  This makes the second trip to Golden Corral and one to Chuck-rama (I have their shrimp-days all figured out!).

And I ate my share.  They didn't make much money on me last night!

This morning I got up and showered and was ready for the day when I got a text from Jenn inside asking me if I would tend Jaidyn and Madi while they took Bentley to wrestling.  I was happy to do that.  They were only gone for an hour, but then "the girls" needed to go shopping to get "stuff" for tomorrow.  I guess Jenn wants to feed the folks that come to church for Madi's blessing, but I will bet that food is not the only thing that they went shopping for.  Taurean and I stayed home with the kids and I stayed inside until Taurean's brother came over to watch Nebraska play football (they are HUGE Nebraska fans since their family is originally from around there).  So then I left and went out to the MH and worked on this.  Glad to get it done.

Me doing my "Grandfatherly" duty.  Love these kids!

Our plans are to stay here for tomorrow and then head south starting on Monday.  We plan to go as far as Provo on Monday and park the MH out in front of Melissa's, spend the evening there.  Judy Lynn has some craft stores that she has to hit and we will do that either Monday after we get there or Tuesday morning if we get there too late.  Then we will head to AZ through Las Vegas, taking two days to get there.  We will stay in WARM AZ until Thanksgiving and then work our way back to Oregon.  And yes... we are having a BALL.  LOVE our motorhome!

For those of you that follow our activities, I thought I would take a few minutes and post some pictures and tell you about our first week in our "annual" motorhome Fall vacation.  We left on Thursday, October 18th.

This was the motorhome and tow-car parked in front of Leslie's as we
picked up some thing to take with us.

We drove clear to Boise that first day.  Aaron had scoped out a RV park where we pulled in and set-up in the dark (I don't like setting up in the dark).  But we wanted to spend Friday and Saturday with Aaron in Boise.  Leslie, Josh & Family were supposed to join us later for the night, but they got caught in Le Grande with a couple of bad accidents further down the road and the police would not not let them proceed.  They were communicating with Aaron, Judy and I and we tried to find a different route for them to come, but when they tried those alternate routes, they were closed too, so they ended up getting a motel room, staying for the night and then coming on it and meeting us in Boise on Friday.

Friday morning we met Aaron at the "Discovery Center of Idaho" and went in and went through the "Body" display.  It was fascinating. They had displays of the entire body and you could see where everything was with explanations of how things worked.  When I was younger I wanted to be a doctor... which probably explains my fascination.

Aaron and Judy Lynn out front of the Discovery Center - Some of the pretty trees there in Boise with their Fall Colors

Aaron's Massage Therapy school is in a "Historical" home there in Boise where a "Territorial Governor" stayed.  In our previous trip down, Aaron took us all through the house. 

Here is is school and a picture of him and his Mom inside the school.

This trip we had made arrangements for Aaron to give some massages while we were there.  He needs so many hours of internship massages, so I purchased five 1-hour massages. Judy Lynn went first and I waited outside for Les and Josh to arrive.  They arrived just in time for Leslie to be second.  While Leslie was having her massage, the rest of us went to Cabela's and just "roamed".

Josh, Finn & Sawyer (with new hats). - Finn, Josh & Reese

Since the boys got hats, Grandpa had to buy one for Reese.
It says "I hunt for hugs"

Finn, Josh, Reese & Judy Lynn

Sawyer is behind the cart and all you can see is his hat.  Reese would NOT just sit there in her cart, so you could not put anything in the cart or "out" it would go. Little pill!

Reese & her hat

Leslie called while we were still "roaming" around Cabela's, so we left and went and met her and they loaded up and headed for Jennifer's leaving us behind there in Boise.

Judy Lynn and I driving behind Les & Josh

Aaron had some other massages he had scheduled, so my massage had to wait until later that evening.  Judy Lynn found a paper store, so while we we were waiting for Aaron to finish.  Then we decided to go get something to eat before giving me my massage.  We found a Golden Corral who were serving jumbo shrimp, which certainly made me happy.

Aaron & his Mom

After dinner Aaron took us back to his school and gave me a "Therapeutic" (vs a "feel good") massage.  But I enjoyed the massage and hope I can get another one.  That one was my very first massage, so I did not have any idea what I was getting myself in to, but this was very pleasant.  Aaron and I had a good talk while he was doing the massage, mostly him telling me what he was doing and why.  THANKS Aaron.  After the massage, Aaron came back to the motorhome with us and we talked for quite a while.  It was good to spend some time with him.  We don't really get to see him that often.

Saturday morning we got up and I started putting things away in the MH ready for travel.  We drove the MH over to a Fred Meyer fuel station (with Judy Lynn following in the car) where I filled it with fuel.  Judy Lynn wanted to go back to the paper store and we also wanted to go get some more hats like we got Reese for the rest of our young granddaughters, so we parked the MH, did the shopping, went back to the MH to get some materials that we had brought Aaron from the storage shed and took that to him.  He was in school, so we just dropped the stuff off, said some quick goodbyes and left.  We drove back to the MH, hooked up the car and headed for Richmond.  We did not get to Richmond until after dark, so one again I was parking and setting up the MH in the dark.  But we were glad to get there.  The house was full with Les and family already there, so we were glad we had our own "accommodations".

We attended an earlier Sacrament meeting on Sunday so that we could accommodate some other things we had planned.  Les & family left mid-afternoon for Salt Lake.  Josh has to work in Los Angeles next week, and he has a cousin there in Salt Lake, so they were going there for the night so Leslie did not have to get up so early to take Josh to be at the airport at 8:00 AM.  Judy Lynn and I went up to Brent and Jan's and spent the evening with them.  Their July, Dallas and their families were there so we had a good visit with them.  Jan enticed us there by telling us that she was going to be serving some of her deserts after their dinner and they were GREAT, but the company was all that was really necessary.

Jan, Brent & Dallas
(Didn't take enough pictures)

I won't bore you with the details of what we did last week, only post some pictures with a little narrative.  (This posting is too long already!)

This is what I woke up to on Tuesday Morning.
Certainly NOT a welcome site

One day I was left to tend kids.  I found a secret.
Put on "Transformers Prime" and they sat just like that for the entire show.

I took Bentley to School almost every day
He was excited to have Grandpa do that!

Les had to take Sawyer out of school, so one of the tasks was to get both Sawyer and Bentley to stop playing and do their lessons.
You can just see the wheels turning here!

Bentley & Sawyer
Two little "buddies"

Reese settled down for the night (after some doin!).

Reese with her Mom - Reese and Jaidyn

One way to keep Reese out of trouble.
In her High Chair with FOOD!

Jaidyn and her hat from Grandpa - Sawyer and Reese

Reese "Tending" little Madi
Not so "gently" at this point.

On Thursday I went over and got my my Mom to bring her to see Les's kids since the weather was such that I did not want to drive the MH over there.  As I left Logan, this is the progression of the roads.

Leaving Logan

Entering Logan Canyon
  

On top of Logan Canyon

Bear Lake - You could hardly see it

You could see Bear Lake a little better as I came down out of the canyon.

Bear Lake between Garden City and Fish Haven
 

Mom's Home and looking at the hills west of Mom's home.

I had a good visit with Mom back through the canyon and she said she trusted my driving in the snow and says she was not worried at all.  When we got to Logan I took her to her hearing-aid doctor and had them clean her hearing aid.  It had stopped working earlier in the week and she is lost without it.  When I got to St. Charles I took a look at it and could tell that the little opening was full of ear-wax, so I got a toothpick, cleaned it out and it started working.  But the wax fell inside the hearing aid and I did not know if that would hurt anything, so I took it in to have it cleaned out.  When I gave it to the receptionist and told her what I had done, she misunderstood me.  When I went back to pick it up, the doctor met me and told me that he could not find a "toothpick" inside the hearing aid.  When I said "it" fell inside, I meant the ear-wax, not the toothpick.  Funny!  (At least I thought so!)

Mom Arnell and six of her MANY Great-Grandchildren
Reese, Bentley, Madi, Sawyer, Reese & Jaidyn

On Sunday, Judy Lynn and I "motored" to Provo to be with Maxine and her family as Melissa's Austin reported his mission in Mexico City and his brother Matthew talked as he was leaving for the Philippines this Wednesday.  Troy (Melissa's husband and the boy's father is Bishop of their ward, so it was really a "family" thing.  Both boys sounded like "returned" missionaries.  Matthew will be a good missionary.  After Sacrament meeting we went over to Troy and Melissa's new (to them) home where they had some food and lots of good company.  I did not take enough pictures to get everyone, but here are some I did take.

 
Maxine & Melissa

Matthew, Melissa & Austin
 

That pretty well catches you up.  Today is Tuesday and I am tending Jaidyn here in the MH.  She is watching a movie while I am doing this.  Jenn took Madi with her, and she and Judy Lynn "have errands" (sounds a lot like shopping to me!).

This morning when I took Bentley to school, I took my ballots up to the post office and put them in the mail.  So I have done my "civic duty" and "made my voice heard".  I hope that ALL OF YOU who read this do the same.

October, 2012

Dear Family,

Tick... tick... tick... is right. When I got on the computer this evening after a VERY LONG day, thinking I had one more day to get this letter to Brent, I took a second look at the calendar only to find out that Brent is right. So I lost a day… not a surprise. Sometimes I think that I am losing a lot more than that!

Summer is almost over for us up here.  We have had a fantastic fall with no rain as of yet to ruin our garden.  I went out today and finished getting the onions. Tomorrow I will go out and pick all of the tomatoes as the weather-guessers say that we will be getting our first rain for a long time on Friday.  I have my garden mostly prepared for the winter “growing season… which consists mostly of obnoxious weeds and other unwanted growing things.  Last year it was volunteer rye that took over because I had planted rye the year before trying to keep down the weeks.  That worked, by the way, but then getting rid of the rye plants in my garden this summer has been a challenge.  I still have three types of lettuce (5^th planting) and the carrots still growing.  I leave the carrots in the ground and cover them with grass and leave clippings and they pretty well last all winter.  So we are still eating delicious home-grown tomatoes.  After my store runs out, I go for a long time without eating any tomatoes because I have such a time transitioning to the store-bought things that look a lot like tomatoes, but don’t taste like them. Well, so much for the garden update.

We are still trying to “get out of Dodge”.  I have one more tail-gate for a Seattle Seahawks game up in Seattle this weekend, and then the summer rental season will be pretty much finished.  I have one rental out right now that also comes back this weekend.  I have to take the Phaeton in to the fix-it shop to have a couple of things fixed that I cannot do myself.  I hope to have that done on Monday and Tuesday.  Then we will start packing and will  leave later in the week.  This trip down, since Aaron is in Boise until November sometime finishing his massage therapy schooling, so we plan to stop there for at least one day so Aaron can give his Mom a massage, and I just might get one also.  I have never had a massage, so that would be a new experience for me.  Then we will head for Jenn’s place in Richmond and spend a couple of weeks split between there and Bear Lake.  After visiting there for however long we decide to stay, we will work our way down to Arizona to visit with Jeff and Becky.  We are thinking that since it is so late, that we just might spend Thanksgiving with them down there and then work our way back home.  If the weather in Utah and Idaho is good, we will come back that way, if not we will come back through California.

Thanks to all of you who remembered our Jay in your prayers this past month.  Jay is doing better, is back to work doing “desk duty”.  The flair-up of his Crohn’s problem was a surprise and a concern.  We hope that this time it will stay under control for a lot longer.  Thanks again for your thoughts and concern. Thankfully there is lots of family living here close so helping Heather with Gwen and Oscar.

We had a relaxing weekend up here and were able to listen to all the sessions of General Conference.  Of special note to me was Elder Holland’s talk Sunday Morning and Elder Bednar’s talk Sunday afternoon.  I usually don’t pick out particular talks of conference, but these two made an impression,especially Elder Holland.  Of course, in every conference it seems that there is at least one message that was given just for me, and having two this conference was a bonus.

We are doing well up here and looking forward to visiting with many of you this coming few weeks.  Until then, we send you our love.

Judy Lynn & Roger

Now for some pictures:

For many years I have been renting a storage shed at a apartment complex that is managed by a family in our ward.  I finally got tired of the expense and decided to build a storage shed in my back yard,  I purchased the shed in kit form and took some pictures as we put it together.

Sod removed from around old shed pad.  Starting to move in the gravel for the base of the pad.

Using Todd's JD tractor and cart to move in the gravel.  Chad helping as well as Finn wanting to be in the middle of things.

Getting close to having the gravel moved.  Finn taking advantage of the empty cart on the way out to get more gravel.

Pad pretty well finished

Laying out the foundation

   
Floor and two sides in place

Three sides in place and one of the roof ends ready to be raised

 Working on roof

 
Roof paneled and then shingled - Door hung

Finished in one day

After our first trip Idaho/Utah, the weather was good so I was able to paint the shed.  The color is the same as we painted the house last time and is not much different from the primer that was on the shed as it was built.  While I had the paint sprayer, I used it to paint the addition to the awning that we completed last Fall and never got painted.  The picture on the right was showing the difference the paint makes.

I had a tailgate up in Seattle for the Seahawks/Green Bay football game.  These folks sure do live different lives than I do.

The people come for a couple of hours and eat DRINK and visit/socialize.  I guess the company that pays for this
gets there moneys worth for the good-will because they keep doing it.

They use the Phaeton MH for the dispensing of the drinks (booze)

One of the other Fall projects was painting/staining the railing I installed on my flatbed trailer.

Garden almost ready for winter - Onions pulled and laying on the ground to dry.

 This is a new toy that my Homeowner's Association purchased for me to use.  It picks up the grass clippings and leaves.
It works great.  I used it for the first time this past week and the park looks really nice.  We have received lots of compliments.

This is the Magnivox Stereo that was the first purchase that Judy Lynn and I made after we were married.  We waited for two years for it to go on sale.  I have just kept it stored, hating to get rid of it for sentimental reasons.  I have finally got to the point that I am ready to let it go.  The radio still works and the sound is great, but the real-to-real tape player and the turntable does not work any longer.  Anyone want a ice looking cabinet?

One last picture of Gwen with some strange eyes.

September, 2012

Dear Family,

Where in the world did August go? I look back and the whole month is sort of like a blur.  I hope that is not particularly a sign of things to come.

It has been a busy month. Of course August is our busiest month with the motorhome rentals, and although we had a couple of motorhomes less to work with this year, they were all kept quite busy, so that kept us busy. Ours is really a family business. I take care of the motorhomes, keeping them in good working condition,getting them to where they need to be and do (most) all of the check-out/check-in.  Judy Lynn takes care all of the kitchen and linen kits, keeping them washed and in the rentals as required.  Leslie does all of the booking and correspondence to get the paperwork ready and arrange for me to meet them.  Heather cleans the insides of the motorhomes (with occasional help from Teri Lynn and Chad) and Chase (with occasional help from Chad) cleans the outside. So with everyone doing their part, things go pretty smoothly most of the time.  SOME DAYS NOT!  We try to keep those days to a minimum.

The rental season is winding down though for this year.  I do have a few rentals in September (one I will tell you about in the next paragraph) and a football “tailgate” in October.  Every little bit helps.

The good news is that we have had a pretty good summer.  The not-so-good news is that Leslie had the nerve to rent out our Phaeton this year right at the time we are supposed to leave for our vacation.  The Alder Reunion is always on the 3^rd Saturday of September and we always try to hit that.  Additionally this year, our Jennifer is due with her new little baby girl on September 18^th, so that worked out great for timing.  Well,this rental is going out on Wednesday the 12^th and does not get back until the 23^rd.  So, for the first time in many years, we are having to drive our car down to Idaho/Utah for the reunion and also to be there for Jennifer’s baby.  Although it is due on the 18^th,she went to the doctor and she is far enough along that the doctor wants to induce her on Friday (14^th). So we plan to leave Gresham early on Thursday and travel to Boise and be there by 2:00 PM where we will stop at Aaron’s school and he is going to give his Mom a massage.  He is looking for folks for his internship, and his Mom is happy to oblige.  After the massage we will travel on to Richmond and should get there in early evening.

The plan now is that Jennifer will go in the hospital and have the baby on Friday.  I will take care of Bentley and Jaidyn while all that is going on. Saturday is the Alder reunion, so we will take Bentley and Jaidyn with us to the reunion to help so that Taurean can be at the hospital with Jenn.  Jenn thinks that if everything goes okay tha she will be able to go home on Sunday.

We will stay in Richmond for the week helping Jennifer with the kids.  I hope to be able to drive to Bear Lake to visit with Mom for a day, but will have to go with the flow with that one.  We will then leave Richmond on Friday to drive back to Gresham.  The Phaeton comes back in on Sunday and then I have to be in Seattle Monday afternoon with it for the first tailgate for Seattle Sea-hawks games.  We will be home for nearly three weeks with the second tailgate being on the 13^th of October.  We then plan to pack the Phaeton and start our belated vacation.  We will go back to Richmond and also go and spend some time in Bear Lake with my Mom and family.  At some point we will head for Arizona and plan to spend a couple of weeks down there with Jeff, Becky and Shauna.  We are thinking that maybe we might even stay there and have Thanksgiving with the Arizona family, but that is subject to change because we have not bounced this off Jeff and Becky and so don’t know their plans for Thanksgiving.  We don’t know when we will go back to Gresham. When we are ready I guess.

Note in the paragraph above that Shauna is now living in Arizona.  She moved down there this past month.  Wal-Mart transferred her to a store in Mesa, right on the border with Gilbert.  She has wanted to leave Provo for over a year now and was either going to Arizona or come back up here to Gresham.  She decided on Arizona and we think that is good.  She can live there for a while and if she does not like it, she can always move up here, but if she does not give-it–a-go down there, she will never know. So far, so good for her… other than her car air conditioner quit on her,but I think that Jeff and Becky’s brother are helping to get it going again.  Arizona in August without AC is not a good thing.

Happy Birthday to Dad, Gary Lee and Shauna (tomorrow).  I always think about Gary Lee and my Dad on the 11^th, wondering what they are doing and if they are thinking of us… which brings up and interesting question. Will we continue to celebrate our “birthday” in the life after this one,or will be celebrate the date we enter into that realm?  Of course, then I wonder even if we will be keeping track of time.  Well, enough of those thoughts without any “for-sure” knowledge.

I hope this letter finds you all well and happy.  We are doing well, looking forward to our vacation and spending time with family and friends.  Julie, we will be bringing you some blueberries,so get backing that home-made bread.

Love to you all.  Judy Lynn and Roger

P.S.  While I was writing this letter, Judy Lynn was talking to Jennifer on the telephone and Jenn says that she has been having contractions all day, so maybe she won’t wait for us to get there to have her baby.  Stay tuned.

 September 17th Update:

Since I wrote the above, little Madison has arrived

MadisonAnn Stewart Born 09/12/12 at 0432. Weighing in at 7 lbs 9 oz. 20.5 inches.

You will note that I did not get this posted on the 10th like I usually do.  Too many things going on at the time.

Judy Lynn and I left Gresham on Thursday and drove all the way to Richmond in one day (a chock for us as we are used to taking two days in our motorhome.  If you note the dates you will see that Jenn did not wait for us.  We arrived at her place just hours after she got home from the hospital with little Madison.  We have been here in Richmond since.  We attended the Alder reunion on Saturday and it was good to visit with relatives on her side of the family.  We will stay here until Saturday and then as stated above, head back to Gresham for a couple of weeks to tend to "business" then load up the Phaeton and start our "real" vacation.

As I also said above, stay tuned!

August, 2012

Dear Family,

This is only the 9^th, and I still have a WHOLE DAY, butthe weekends tend to be somewhat unpredictable as far as planning some time tosit down and write, so I thought I would get started. 

As is the case every summer with the motorhome rental business,the entire summer is filled with the hustle-bustle of getting the motorhomes inand out.  This year has been better forme as I have a “crew” that does all the work and I just have to do what I amtold to do.  Leslie takes care of all ofthe bookings and getting the paperwork all completed before and after therentals.  Heather (sometimes with Chad’shelp… [ever since he got the cast of his broken foot]) cleans the insides ofthe motorhomes, Chase washes the outsides, and Judy Lynn takes care of thehousekeeping kits making sure they are all washed and put in the motorhomeswhen required.  I do most of thecheck-out and check-in and take care of arranging any “putzing” (that is ALWAYSrequired to keep a motorhome in good condition) as well as taking care of thelogistics of the deliveries to renters or to other repair shops asrequired.  Right now we have all of ourmotorhomes out but out big one and it just came back last weekend.  Fortunately we have not had a lot of problemsthis year.  The previous renters outPhaeton did some damage to the same side that has been damaged two timesbefore… not as bad as previous, but still is going to cost the insurance abundle to fix. 

We have most of our motorhomes busy until after Labor-day and thennot much going on the rest of September… which is good because we always leavein September for our vacation.  This yearwe have an additional reason to leave in September.  Last year it was Dad’s 100^thBirthday Party, and this year our Jennifer is due with their #3 child aroundthe middle of August.  We also think wehave the Alder reunion the 3^rd Saturday of the month… which thisyear falls pretty early since the month begins on a Saturday.  We have not heard anything about the reunionthough, but the Alders are known for doing things at the last minute.  Since most of them live close, that is not aproblem, but for us clear up here, we have to plan.

Nothing very exciting has happened this month.  We have had the family over a lot.  Leslie, Todd and Heather all went in andpurchased a water-slide and they come over and put it up in our back yard andthe kids have a ball and the parents have a ball watching.  Leslie and Heather have also invited somefriends over with their children and do a lot of visiting while the kids areentertaining themselves on the slide.  Ituses quite a bit of water, so each time when they are finished and drain thewater, my small back yard gets a good watering (flooding).  They have put the slide up once at Todd’splace and once in the small back yard that Heather and Jay have, but our backyard is the most popular and we like that because it is handy here for Grandmaand Grandpa to watch also.  It issupposed to hold “kids” up to 200 pounds, but so far I have not seen any of theadults here on it.  It is more fun towatch the kids.  Both Heather and Lesliehave added pictures to their blogs and have put some things on Facebook, butbelow is the only picture I have.

Sawyerand Finn on Water Slide

My birthday was in July and it was a BIG one forme this year.  I don’t remember of everyhaving trouble entering into another “decade”, but this one got myattention.  The family celebrated bygetting together for a steak-fry.  Icooked the steaks on my big grill outside and “fun was had by all”J. A few of us also got together recently at the bowling alley to celebrateKelly’s birthday.  It is Todd and Jacki’s10^th wedding anniversary this week and they are going celebratingsometime because they ask us to take care of Toby.

We had a bumper crop of blueberries and so Judy Lynn has kept a supply of these around... which is definitely an attraction to the family

Trees Were LOADED with BIG lushes berries

Putting the frozen berries in freezer bag ready for "sucking" out the air
Part of the pickings

Blueberries with Shreaded Wheat for Breakfast one morning
Blueberry Pancake with easy-over egg for another
Blueberry pies around for three weeks.

(Eat your heart out Maxine and Julie!)

Lots going on during the summer months, but nota lot of interesting things to write about, so I will close for thismonth.  I hope this letter finds you allwell.

Love to you All,

Judy Lynn & Roger

This is just a notification of an update of my weblog for Facebook.  When I updated it earlier today, for some reason, it did not post on Facebook.

Well I remembered this month.  I cannot believe that I completely forgot last month… and thanks to Brent for the slight delay so that some of us could make amends.  This has been a busy month but as I sit down to tell you all about it, my mind goes blank and I cannot think of a single thing.

So I will start with our annual Memorial-Day outing at Barton Park.  We had reservations early in the year and the bunch of us that go rented at least 13 (maybe more) sites, so family and friends gathered for the weekend.  Judy Lynn, Cort, Chase and I went down a little early on Friday.  Kelly drove the pickup pulling the flat-bed trailer with all of our camping stuff.  We parked the Phaeton in our spot and the kids helped me unpack and set up camp.  Since I do most of the cooking, I have quite a setup there at the side of the Phaeton. 

Left:  Dutch-Oven stand, next is a table that holds all of the eating utensils and also cooking foods as needed, next is the grill where I do most of the cooking and on the other side is a two-burner propane stove that I use mostly to heat water and also start the charcoal for the Dutch ovens.
Right:  Cooking equipment in reverse.

 
The grill and me tending it during one of the meals

Family and friends start arriving at any time they can get off work, packed and the short drive to Barton Park.  Todd was working clear up in St. Johns, so it took him quite a while to get home, get the Conquest packed and get down to the park. 

Dutch-Oven stand cooking one of the meals
(The stand is there so this "old man" does not have to stoop over to tend the cooking Dutch-ovens)

Sunday Morning, those of us that wanted to go to church got up and went home, got a nice warm shower and attended to our duties.  I did not stay for the entire block, so I went home, changed, picked up what things I/we needed for dinner that night and headed back to the park.  Sunday night is the pot-luck dinner.  We always cook our Dutch Oven chicken-leg (chicken legs, potatoes, carrots, onions and canned milk and spices).  Judy Lynn said she counted up to 70 and lost count.  There was plenty to eat, but deserts were a little shy.

Grill cooking the hash-browns and bacon
(Using the bacon grease for cooking the hash-browns)

Then came the task of cleaning everything up and packing it for the trip home.  We were not in any particular hurry so we were some of the last to leave the park.  When I got home with the Phaeton, Jay was already there unpacking the flat-bed trailer and helped with everything.  Teri Lynn brought a couple of her boys over too, so that made short work of a hard job.  I had planned on just doing part of it on that day and then the rest on Tuesday, but with the help we were able to get everything packed away and I even got the Phaeton taken back out to Todd’s to its little parking spot.  It was a very nice weekend.  As we were packing, Leslie’s little Sawyer was in tears saying he did not want to have to wait for another entire year for camping again.  It is things like that happen that make all the work of the weekend worth it.  We just miss the members of our family that were not with us there this year (hint, hint).

I have worked on some projects around the house and will post some pictures about them tomorrow also.  One project is the outside wall of our bedroom where I removed the window in 2005 and just have never taken the time to finish the inside with taping and painting.

I posted some pictures of this in my last posting.  We have two of the three armoires in place and there will be a third in the open space there.  The armoires are not as tall as we had thought, so we are trying to figure out some shelving to go on top of them.  What you see are possibilities, but probably not what will be there.  You can see all of the "stuff" in front that I still have to sort through and put in individual drawers or containers, but cannot do that until we get the third armoire, and that is still a week or so away.

Benches under construction and "nearly" finished.

  Kevin built us this picnic table several years ago, but somehow got pulled off the project before he made the benches.  So we have had the table out back under the patio but have never really been able to use it.  So I took on the project to build the benches.  They are stacked on top of each other here waiting for me to stain.  I did not make them out of redwood like the table, so will need to stain them

  Just a couple of honey-do things that I can now check off my list.

Jenn & Judy Lynn visiting - Jaidyn & Bentley playing hide-n-seek.

Jaidyn & Bentley on airplane on the way to Portland - Jaidyn & Leslie's Finn

Sawyer, Bentley, Finn, Gwen & Quinn - Finn, Jaidyn & Bentley

Grandpa and his two kids

One last thing, Leslie surprised us last week with the announcement that she is pregnant and will be having their fourth child in January.  This was a little sooner than she wanted.In the past she has always needed some “help” (medicine type… clean up your mind out there!)but this time she didn’t.  That means that Jenn will have her little girl in September and Leslie will have her baby (don’t know gender yet) early next year.  Family continues to grow. 

Oh, and one other thing.  Teri Lynn’s Chad was out at school helping his choir set up for a concert in the afternoon and was moving some of the bleachers they stand on, slipped and fell and broke his foot.  He is in a cast and will have the cast on until at least the end of June.  That has slowed him down some! 

Chad in his choir robe... should have shown his foot & cast

Well, I think that is about all for now.  I hope this letter finds you all well and happy.  Judy Lynn is doing better.  She still has to sleep with her oxygen, but does not need it during the day.  She will be going in for another checkup soon and we hope that will be the end of the oxygen.

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers.
Love to you all,  Judy Lynn & Roger