July 24-27.2008

We've returned home from our big trip to see the new Twin Falls Temple and attended the open house Friday am. Josh and Jessica and girls, Taralee and Richard and 4 children, & Terral and I stayed at Jerome, Id. the night before and made it to Twin Falls by 0830. Our tour group was well organized and we were done by 0920. Our friends from Highe School Sheila and Alan Swenson were supervisors there so we got to visit with them. We lingered for another 1/2 hr taking pictures and Kinsie making friends. We went in our 3 car caravan & drove to Shoshone Falls, which are still flowing immense amounts of water, making rainbows and awing all the children. We then traveled to Lava Hot Springs to check in the 2 families because we could only reserve 2 rooms for Friday. Terral and I traveled to Malad to meet Gary and Yvonne and 6 kids from Carson City at the Village Inn motel to stay over for the Jensen family reunion on Sat. Jeannine Mills and daughter Teri Sue and her son Jeff and wife Doreen and son Jordan all drove up from Sacramento. We all got together with Sheldon's family on Mill street and visited. It cools down so great at night in Malad.
Saturday found us in the Pioneer Park behind the old Malad High School and updated tennis courts. We had lots of shade, nice picnic shelter and lots of relatives. We caught up on all the new babies born since July, 2006. Approximately 66 family members out of 78 present. I got to visit with Nancy and Judy who drove up from Ogden. Most everyone but me made it to the Malad Drive-in for drinks, mostly Ironport and Cherry drinks. We had great fried chicken and relish dishes, fruit and the works. It was all so well organized by Terral's sister Dian Sines from Springville, Ut (and her family) The only thing wrong, it was pretty darn hot. Guess I'm old after all. The airconditioner in our car had been "fixed" on Tuesday but quit on us on Friday so we are glad to get home. Read Ashtyn's blogspot (ashtynfitz.blogspot.com) for her 11 yr old take on the trip. They sort of loved swimming at Lava. They have good EMT's in Lava. The good new is Ashtyn is okay, just got the wind knocked out of her. Everyone has reported in this pm that they have gotten home ok, Gary and family traveled to SLC to visit with Yvonne's family until Wed, then they'll come up to Weiser for 4 days. Conner Fitzsimonds will be blessed this coming Sunday. bye for now.

July 13, 2008

The past 2 weeks have found us spending one day on the atvs in the mountains above Manns Creek. We traveled the dusty trails, looked at huge "mormon" crickets that are not good looking and saw the top of 4th of July area and traveled over to Bare (or Bear) Road that took us back to the loop, down at the creek. We went up the main road to Spring Creek campground to look over some of the larger potential camping spots for when Gary and Yvonne and 6 kids, Taralee and Ritch's family and Josh and Jessica's family. We've camped there before with not quite so many kids. We had an exciting moment while we had parked our ATVs and I thought I was on a level spot. We visited with the camp's hosts, probably 30 minutes, and got up to leave when all of a sudden my green ATV went whizzing by backwards in front of us missed the camp hosts ATV and trailer went about 15 feet more, made a sharp left turn, missed a sign, hopped a tiny stream and came to rest on a slight incline and just sat there. Terral had been chasing it, and it still had the brake on. It seemed to be quite a miracle that it didn't keep on going down the road to the main road and into the large creek. What a fright. So now I put a rock behind the wheels to park it.

With the 2 new baby's we have six grandsons and six granddaughters. Wow, what a tribe. In the valley it's been very hot but up in the mountains it stayed around 74 degrees. We tried an overnight trip last Wednesday at Anthony Lakes campground with our old camper on the pickup. I had sewed new green curtains for the camper. The highway was under construction (or destruction) with a 45 minute wait,and the campground wasn't quite open yet. The ice had been off the lake only 10 days, there were a lot of pine trees still down and so darn many huge black flies and mosquitos, it was miserable. Ritch and Taralee and kids and baby spent Tuesday night up there and about froze to pieces. It was 38 degrees that night and Taralee and the baby slept in the cab of the pickup, with everyone else in their large tent. So by the time we got there Wed. at noon they were ready to go home. We blew up the raft with the air pump and Terral tried it out on the lake and the girls went wading and semi swimming with their clothes on. They had to pull grandpa in the raft off of a rock, the water was pretty shallow. Taralee and Ritch and Brennan tried the boat but the water was very cold. It's fed by the glaciers and snowbanks still very prominent on the tall mountain crags. Terral, Ritch, Taralee and kids, and their little dog Tyler too, hiked up the trail to see the waterfalls and snow banks. Grandma stayed at camp to tend the baby. There was a little, very fat chipmunk, who kept me and Conner company in camp while everyone hiked. Conner slept very well, the chipmunk ate very well, carrots and chips, and ran all over the table. Sure not afraid of me. The Fitzsimonds' left after lunch and we stuck it out at our camp until 8:45 pm and picked up and left for home. It was too miserable to sit outside with all the flying, stinging critters. I'm content to stay home for now.