New Nose?

How do you like my stylish new nose?

Think I can start a new fashion trend?

Actually, I had surgery on my nose and for 48 hours I had ice packs, one hour every two hours for the first day and then one hour every four hours the next day. Here's what I looked like with the bandages during this time.

This was the look when I took off the bandages. I think the tin nose made a better fashion statement--though the grand kids didn''t appreciate the glamour or the humor. I was taking my clues from the tin nose in the film "Blazing Saddles". The grand kids thought it looked more like I was imitating C3PO in Star Wars. Generation gap, no doubt.

Does Money Grow On Trees?

Of course money grows on trees--and here is proof. We have 4 papaya trees growing next to our house. You can see the fruit turning gold telling us it is time to harvest a delicious treat.

Some like to season the fruit with a squirt of lemon and a sprinkle of sugar. and eat it with a spoon.

Others like to blend it with a banana, ice, a dash of milk and some yogurt as a smoothy.

Here's proof from the local supermarket that the fruit is worth it's weight in gold.

We figure we have already eaten $80 worth and another $250 worth are getting ready for us to enjoy until after Thanksgiving. Like I said, money grows on trees.

Bye, Bye Ole Blue :-(

We finally let go of our trusty 2003 Honda Civic with 233,000 miles. It was sad to let "Ole Blue" go. Debbie thought of this as "her" car when she was in high school. The family decided that Dad could just keep on riding his bike to the university.  Kim got herself a matching car that passed on to her siblings when she left to teach in Australia. Ole Blue was Chrissy's loaner car when we were on our mission in Hungary. It had several trips across the USA to visit grandchildren and extended family.

We now have a brand new 2019 Honda CRV with all kinds of electronic gizmos that we're trying to learn how to use. We call it the "Silver Bullet," It will be our car for weekly trips to the Orlando Temple. With an expected 36 mpg, we should save lots of gas money by not driving our van. It will also be great for our cross country trips this coming year for high school graduations (3), grandchildren baptisms (4), and other family activities.

You can see how dusty it got just driving on our 1.5 mile stretch of dirt road just before our house. Luckily it comes with free car washes.

Naked No More

Some think that if you go to church in just a shirt and tie without a coat, you are naked. About 6 years ago as we were building our log home, lightening struck our beach house and burned up our clothes in the bedroom closet  Since we were building our cabin at the time, I only bought a bare minimum of clothes as replacements. That meant I have been going naked to church with a white shirt and tie but no jacket.

I know that the Prophet Isaiah was told to walk around preaching naked for 3 years to get the attention of the Israelites (Isaiah 20:2-3), but our daughter Kim thought that my 6 years of nakedness was a bit extreme. So on her last visit, we went out and bought a coat to go with my white shirt and tie. 

Here's the results. The bow tie is one that survived the fire. As it is the only thing I inherited from my father after he was killed when I was 8 years old, I wore it in his honor as I leave my nakedness behind.

It looks like I am ready to be a fully clothed preacher man. We'll leave the naked preaching to Isaiah. When I was a missionary in Germany, I found that I was most successful when I wore a light colored suit rather than looking like an undertaker with a black one.

Hurricane Dorian

If you look closely and use a bit of imagination, you can see that the smiley face at the end of our front porch tells you that we survived hurricane Dorian in good shape.

We had steady wind for three days and about 10 inches of rain as measured in the horses feed buckets. The eye of the category 2 hurricane stayed off the east coast and we are 15 miles inland. The winds on the west side of a hurricane are always milder so we had only tropical storm  force winds, about the same as we get in a typical summer rain though these winds lasted for 2 days rather than for half an hour max in a regular summer storm. We lost electricity for about 3 hours on Wednesday.

Right now it is sunny, calm, and clear and the bunnies, birds, and butterflies are telling us the hurricane is gone and we need to join them outside to enjoy the great Florida life. Click on the second picture to see close up the welcoming flock of egrets.

  We are waiting for the grass to dry out from the heavy morning dew so I can cut it before it gets much taller. It grows really fast here in Florida during the summer and with us preparing for Dorian, the grass didn't get its Monday trim. It's Saturday now and it is almost up to my calves.

Ice Skating in August?

What do you do in August when it is getting hot and steaming in Florida? Go ice skating in Minnesota, of course. We went to Minneapolis to join in some family birthday celebrations to do some things like:
going to ice hockey practices..

watching grandkids playing golf...

having fun in the water (only grandma and grandpa thought the water was a bit nippy)...

helping with building projects...

eating great Italian birthday food...

stopping by a great children's book store (watch your head when entering!!)...

and topping it all off with an open air band concert on the shores of Lake Harriet. Of course, as usual, the marches brought a tear to my eyes as memories of my high school days playing in the marching band flooded my mind.

Everyone there thought the weather was extra hot but we thought it felt like a pleasant winter day in Florida. We were glad we brought some long sleeves and long pants along to keep warm in the evening.

Visit to Kim's Stomping Grounds in Minnesota

In our trip to Minneapolis we got to enjoy the sculpture garden near where Kim lived when she taught there. I thought you would enjoy some of the sights. The last one is a tree filled with wind chimes.

Bad Hair Day?

When you are about to turn 18, sometimes crazy things happen with your hair. Here's a case study.
April

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July

The Golden Spike and Us

This spring we celebrated the 150th anniversary of the driving of the Golden Spike to connect the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans in the United States. Since our ancestors participated in the building of the railroad, we thought it would be nice to go relive some of the events.

My great grandfather John McLean came from Scotland to help survey the railroad. Another ancestor David Moffat and his sons helped to do the grading for the track as it came down Echo Canyon and along the Weber River in Utah.

Surveyors had to be adventuresome types. They rode the rails to the end of the line, 

then rode horses,

 hiked,

or paddled canoes

 through mountains

and deserts,

in snow

 and rain

 to find the gentlest way for the thousands of workers behind them to lay the grade and the track for the train and to establish new towns.

There were plenty of new things to delight them--especially wild flowers and small animals.

At night they gathered around the campfire and sang songs and told stories. It's fire season out west so we couldn't build a campfire but we did picnic outside on a blanket, watched the movie ET, and listened to the Utah Symphony play the sound track live.

We did make stops along the way to talk to the "old timers" to hear their versions of the family pioneer stories--though I did warn them that if I like my version better, that's the one that will be passed on to my posterity. I might include in a footnote or two their "alternative" versions.

As Floridians we wanted to have a snow experience like our surveying ancestor had. We found some snow banks,

but the snow makers were not turned on. (That's the modern Mother Nature.)

We discovered an alternative to sledding in the snow and decided it might be even better since most of us were wearing shorts and sandals.

To finish off the adventure in the land of our ancestors, we rode the train from Salt Lake to Sacramento. The views from the dome car were spectacular.

Of course grandma made pioneer style rag dolls for the granddaughters so they would get the pioneer spirit.

My professional cake making daughter even remembered that it was my birthday during the adventure.

It was a great spiritual adventure. Who says that researching your family history can't be fun?