39th Wedding Anniversary October 15th

Mark and Connie

What a wonderful surprise to have Connie and Mark with grownup Jessica visit us on our 39th wedding anniversary. The only celebration we had planned was a lunch the day before at Café Rio. We were so disappointed we could not visit Connie and Mark in Vernal but there wasn’t anything we could do to change the situation, we were stranded with a broken down 4Runner. However, Connie, Mark and Jessie traveled 3 hours and stayed the night in a hotel just so they could see us since we couldn’t visit them. Also impressive was the fact that Jessica had just made the trip to and from Salt Lake City already with her young women leaders and here she was willing to do it again the same day!

I just have to say few more words about Jessie. She is now a beautiful young woman of 5’ 2” and almost 16 years old. She is even driving her mom’s huge SUV.

Terrie and Jessie

A couple of days before the trip, Mark had an interesting time trying to get their crazy cow into a trailer to take to the vet. They needed to see if she was pregnant. They have a steer, a cow and a bull; however, the bull was supposed to be a steer when they bought it. Now that the pretend steer was really a bull they probably had a pregnant cow on their hands and they didn’t want to butcher the cow if she was pregnant. It was keystone cops time with Mark running behind the cow trying to herd her into the trailer and trying to stay out of the way when she did a 180. Herding with the 4 wheeler didn’t work either. I didn’t know the outcome until later. Connie called me and said, “You can congratulate me.” I was startled because I thought she was telling me she was pregnant. It was the cow, not her. Whew!

David and Terrie at the Pie Pizzeria

Connie, Mark and Jessica gave us the greatest gift for our anniversary; to talk and laugh with them face to face. The great pizza place for dinner they took us to and the ice cream to top off the evening just added to that wonderful day.

Terrie, Connie and Jessie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Connie and Jessie

Mark and Connie

No Visits Allowed

The 4Runner’s breakdown cancelled the visits we had scheduled to Connie and Mark, my sister and brother in law in Vernal, and Jim and LaRue, my brother and sister in law in Provo. We had to wait 5 days for the parts and then another week to get everything running again. Fortunately, Kelly, David’s brother in law, was available to help David with the repairs and with the use of his garage. Meanwhile, David helped his Dad with some outside chores around the house.


Every night we had a relaxing evening watching a couple of David’s mom and dad’s favorite TV shows. It has been so nice to be able to have the time to have long talks with them; to hear the stories of way back when.

Home Sweet RV in Sandy

It was comfortable and quiet except for a couple of days when some professional tree cutters spent 8 very noisy hours chain sawing and chipping tree branches right across the street from our RV.  Those tin walls of ours don’t have much insulation.

Kelly, Lionel, Kelsey, Deanna and Terrie

We had more great dinners at Mom and Vern Dad’s house and a wonderful turkey dinner at Deanna and Kelly’s, David’s youngest sister and brother in law.

Chewie's new Halloween costume

Carol, Dan and grandkids

The second Sunday, Carol, another of David’s sisters and her husband Dan came to visit along with one of her daughter’s Jennie and her family. It was great to see those very cute kids. We don’t get the opportunity to see them very often.

Jenny, Shane and very cute kids

Elburn's banjo from Jimmie

A surprise for the third Sunday was getting to see Gary, David’s younger brother, sustained as the 1st Counselor in the bishopric of his ward. It was so wonderful to see Gary’s two grown sons and their families at church. Josh, the oldest son, is really into Family History. He gave me access to his family site on ancestry.com and mentioned that one of the compilers of the Thomas-Meyers family history book, Sharon Pflughoeft, would like to meet with us when we get to Oklahoma so she could share the results of her research. She emailed me and really wants to meet with us.

Tiffanie, Break Down, and the Zombie Run

On Thursday we went to see Tiffanie in American Fork and the 4Runner was not happy. The temperature gauge went straight up to hot just before we got on the freeway. David thought it was just an oversight on his part that he didn’t check the water level. He bought some water, filled the radiator and we were on our way again. It happened again just before we got to Tiff’s place in American Fork. He was still hopeful it wasn’t anything catastrophic. Despite the problem with the 4Runner, we had a great visit with Tiff. She is doing great. She lives in a cute little 5th wheel manufactured in the 80’s. It even has a washer and dryer and a large freezer.  Our larger rig doesn’t have those amenities. She works at Office Max a short walk away from her home. This works out great because she doesn’t have a car. When she has to go to church or get groceries, she has some very nice friends and neighbors who give her rides. 

We left about 5 pm while we still had daylight just in case the 4Runner was still having problems. Five miles down the freeway it did. The temperature gauge flipped to hot. I could hear the water boiling out this time. We pulled over to the side of the freeway and down the hill a bit for safety. Cars whizzing past as David got in and out of the 4Runner had me praying he wouldn’t get hit even though we tried to pull off as far as we could get. David poured the last of the water into the radiator, turned the key and white smoke came out of the exhaust. Not a good sign so we carefully got back on the freeway and limped to the nearest exit into Lehi. We tried to find some water at a church and at a park nearby. They both had valves David couldn’t open. We found a nice man in his front yard watching his little girls as they played. He filled the water jugs for us and David once again poured water into the radiator. Just as soon as he did, the water immediately came out of the overflow. The 4Runner was not going anywhere. David called Vern Dad to the rescue and we left the 4Runner there.

David couldn’t get the 4Runner back on Friday so we had to figure out how to contact the nice man where it was parked to let him know we wouldn’t be back to pick it up the next day. I remembered his name, Matt Casey, and part of his address so we tried to use the people finder programs on the internet to find his phone number. The programs either wanted money for the info or his number was listed as unavailable. I remembered the truck in his driveway had Cache Electric on the side so I told David to look that up. He found the number. It was so easy; I called and asked for Matt and even though I sensed his surprise at hearing from me, he was very kind about our situation. Who says I don’t have situational awareness.
Saturday morning David and Kelly tried putting a new thermostat on the 4 Runner in the hopes that it would take care of the problem. It didn’t so they had to tow it to Kelly’s house so he and David can take it apart on Monday and see what is really wrong with it. Hopefully it is the head gasket because the kit was only $100. But they will take the top half of the engine apart to see for sure. If it is something worse then we will have to decide if we want to spend more money on fixing it or just junking it and buy another clunker instead. It’s just another of our mini-Job experiences.

Lionel, Abby and Kelsey

Saturday afternoon we had a great time going with Deanna and Kelly to the Zombie Run. Lionel and Kelsey, their adult children, were running in it. They both dressed up as zombies with gross bloody makeup that Abby, Lionel’s girlfriend, put on for them. It was the first time David and I have ever been to a race. The race was to raise money for the Huntsman Cancer Clinic. The Zombie Run was held at This is the Place Heritage Park near the This is the Place monument. It was a beautiful setting and a perfect sunny day for the race.

Deanna, David and Kelly

I made up my mind after watching the agony of the racers that I never want to run in a race.  This was a small race so they only had to pay $25 dollars to enter and an extra $4 if they wanted a t-shirt.

Kelsey and Lionel at the Start

Lionel at the Finish

Kelsey at the Finish

Kelsey and Deanna after the race

After the race, the participants looked just like what they were dressed up as; zombie dead.  And this race was only a 5K run. Apparently, it was a bad race because of a very steep hill they had to traverse. It was so steep most people could only walk it. As a reward they got bananas, a cookie, a bottle of water and sore tired bodies. Big Whoop! However, it was fun for us non-participants to see Lionel and Kelsey running as disgusting zombies.

Brain eating Granny

The creepy brain eating granny who won best costume, Mr. Evil Pumpkin-head on his springy stilts and the four zombie girls dancing to “Thriller” right before the race just added to the fun. Unfortunately, only one of the girls could really dance; the red head. They put her out in front so the audience seemed to be pleased. Deanna and Kelly took us to a great Tex-Mex restaurant called Café Rio afterwards so that made all the standing around waiting to see the kids run the race even more worth it.

Mr. Evil Pumpkin-head

Zombie Dancers

David at the monument

Terrie at the monument

The Beginning September 18 2010

What do you do when you lose your home of 15 years and you can’t get a job? You go on the road in your RV. Getting rid of most of the accumulated stuff of 40 years and packing the rest takes up a lot of time and makes for big time stress; especially, when your husband falls out of the motor-home trying to scare away a bear and ends up breaking his arm, hand and wrist so severely that surgery is needed to repair them. For the full story, go to grampdog.blogspot.com. We have felt like mini Jobs (bible prophet) for the past two years. It must have been really obvious because even our home teacher commented that our lives lately were like Job’s. The hardest thing we have had to do is leave behind family that we have been close to for so many years.

David's city rhyme: Safe and fine in La Pine.

Our Motor-home in Jimmie Dad's front yard

Finally, we started our new life on the road. La Pine, Oregon was our first stop to visit Uncle Jimmie, David’s uncle and Patty, David’s cousin.

Terrie, Jimmie Dad and Patty

I first met Uncle Jimmie last year and we both felt an immediate bond. Since then we have developed a close relationship. He says it’s like we have the same DNA because we have the same interests and thoughts about a lot of things. He has become the father of my heart and his daughter, Patty, my new sister. Although, I have two wonderful sisters already, there is more than enough room for this very special lady in my family. Patty and I had a great time attending the Social Security 101 meeting in Bend about 45 minutes away where we got an overview of the system. As for Dad’s, I lost my dad 35 years ago in a freak automobile accident when I was 22 years old and he was only 45. It was a huge loss for me. Uncle Jimmie and I talked about him being my Dad and he told me I could think that I now have two dads, David’s Dad, Vern, and him. For the sake of less confusion, I will use Vern Dad and Jimmie Dad from here on. So my life is improving greatly even though it doesn’t look that way from a material stand point. I am trying to take to heart the statement, “you can’t take it with you.” Jimmie Dad tells me that at some point I will feel as if a huge burden was taken off my shoulders when the house and most of our belongings are gone. I hope so.

I found out something really great at the library in La Pine. I have been worried that I would have problems getting “free” reading material while we are on the road. This is very important to me because I love to read and David and I read all the time. The library has a rack of what they call browser books. These are books donated to the library by patrons. The library does not include them in their inventory. They are for traveling people like us who don’t have library cards because they don’t stay in one place long enough. You can take these books and bring them back to the library when you have finished reading or you can keep them and share them with others on the road. The librarian told me that most libraries should have this kind of program. I also got to meet more of the locals. The cutest kids were at my table in the library. The young 14 year old boy asked me how I was in Spanish and I when I answered him back in Spanish, he told me he didn’t understand. The other 14 year old, a very pretty girl, said he was a Spanish speaker wannabe. The boy wanted to make sure I knew that the girl had a very strange name. He told me her name was Pebbles. She told me her parents named her after a singer. I knew I was getting old but I didn’t think I was that old. I have never heard of this singer. I thought she was named after Pebbles as in the Flintstone children Pebbles and Bam Bam. The other little girl was 7 and she made sure I knew that her school was close by. I wondered what their parents did for a living in this very small community. Their answers weren't very specific except for the fact they were in the medical field.

Aunt Coleen, Terry Gale and Uncle Bobby

We also got to visit with David’s Uncle Bobby and Aunt Coleen who live in La Pine on the other side of town. They invited us to breakfast one afternoon because they know we don’t like to get up too early. Aunt Coleen made us breakfast for lunch. She makes the best whole wheat pancakes we have ever had. They came to visit at Jimmie Dad’s house but I was too sick with a bad cold flu to see them. I could hear them talking and laughing from the motorhome. I was so disappointed I couldn’t join in. I love to laugh.

Terrie and Jimmie Dad at parting

Lonely motor-home at the rest stop

After spending almost two weeks in the beautiful high desert of Oregon in La Pine we left to go to Salt Lake City. We traveled over 400 miles to a rest stop on the other side of Boise, Idaho. We didn’t get much sleep at the rest stop because the truckers arrive late and leave early.

David's city rhyme: We is great and in Salt Lake. October 2 2010

We got to Salt Lake just in time to hear conference. We enjoyed the talks by the apostles and other general authorities as usual. I really enjoyed President Uchtdorf’s talk. He stressed slowing down and focusing on the essential; paying attention to divine things that matter most especially when bad things happen. He said to concentrate on the basics, our relationships with:

1) God: We need to seek Him, open our lives to Him and give our lives in actively following Jesus Christ. We should spend meaningful time with Him through prayer and scripture study.

2) Family: Love is spelled TIME. We should spend time with each other; dinner time, Family home evening and fun time. We should enjoy our differences and our commonalities.

3) Fellowmen: We should be sensitive to the needs of others; giving service where needed. Even if all you can do is listen that may be all that someone needs.

4) Self: Learn to see yourself as God sees you. Enjoy what God has given you, His creations.

The first Sunday here we had a wonderful dinner at Mom and Vern Dad’s house. Last night we got to spend some time with Deanna and Kelly, David's sister and brother in law. It’s great getting to see the family we don’t get to see often enough.