Monday, November 22, 2010

November Cabin Trip with Mike and Judy

The cabin
In the kitchen/dining area
At the overlook
At Treasure Falls
Dorine and I spent the weekend in Colorado with Mike and Judy at the cabin, which of course is a few miles south of Pagosa Springs.  It was a nice, laid-back time and I enjoyed getting out of town for a couple of nights.  The photos above show (a) an outdoor view of the cabin, (b) Mike, Dorine, and Judy in the kitchen/dining area after finishing a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, (c) me at the overlook up the road from Treasure Falls, which is en route to Wolf Creek Pass, and (d) all four of us at Treasure Falls (taken by a family visiting from Texas).

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

November Update


It seems almost pointless now to talk about what's happening in our family and what's coming up, as very little is going on and even less is in the offing.  Dorine and I are planning to go to the cabin in Colorado later this month with Mike and Judy P_____, but that will be a weekend jaunt consisting of two nights only.  (Dorine has a vacation day she could use, but Judy, like Dorine before her, just hired on with the public schools as a full-time educational assistant, and she obviously doesn't have any vacation saved up yet.)  The holiday season is almost upon us, but I can't seem to care much about it aside from the time I'll have off work.  I'd like to plan a longer trip somewhere -- besides Utah, that is -- but I seem to be the only one in our family who has any real passion for travel.  I long intended to take my mother down to Ruidoso (Downs) to see the Hubbard Museum of the American West, but Mom, now almost ninety years old, is simply too weak to make the trip, and I find little joy in traveling by myself.

Chris, Kristy's husband, is still running his own auto-repair shop on East Central, something he seems to have been born to do -- although that doesn't always translate into a fat living, especially in hard economic times.  Heidi and Dion have had a few disagreements, arising mostly from differences in values, both personal and financial; Dion's got a great heart and, from what I've seen, a strong work ethic, but his and Heidi's priorities don't always mesh well.  Devery and Easton are now living in their home on the west side.  Easton's dad spent several weeks, with their help, renovating the inside of the home -- they did a lot to it -- although they still need to re-roof before they'll be able to take out their own mortgage loan on the property.  Easton's job with Bradbury Stamm seems to be going well.  Darren is still at BYU and is doing very well in school; he plans to take a lot of hard classes next semester and will probably need to quit his job in the dining room at the Cancer...er, Cannon...Center.  Kiley seems to be adjusting well to college at UNM, although she doesn't seem to care much for being a music major.  Her erstwhile boyfriend Erich came home from the MTC only a few days before he would have left for Australia; he was suffering from "separation anxiety" and had become quite ill, and now it seems less likely that he'll give it another go.  (I have two comments to make.  One, it was a good thing that I left home for freshman year before I served a church mission, as I had that year to overcome my own "separation anxiety," which was pretty profound at times.  [I cashed checks on at least two occasions for bus fare home before allowing myself to be talked into staying at BYU.]  And, two, for some reason the church called Erich almost six months before the day he reported to the MTC -- what good could be expected to come from forcing him to wait such an inhumane length of time?)

The grandkids are all doing well, and Mason and Tyler (see photo above) recently had their first birthdays.  (That's no optical illusion -- Mason really is that much bigger than Tyler.)  Both are about the cutest little boys imaginable.