Family Reunion at Camp Alpine

The reunion was great. Lots of love. The pictures tell the story.

Trevor loves music

Grace, Laura and Kate on the dock

Lots of good food

Grace taught a workshop on making things out of duct tape

Ken encouraged painting with oils (on an old painting)

The finished artwork (it will hang in Ken's garage)

The little girls: Sydney, Maia, Kate, Grace and Laura

Returning from a walk in the woods

The newest member of the family: Gabriel

Curtis wading in the pond

Robin decorated herself with pond mud

Jessica teaching her Mom how to crochet

Water balloon volleyball

The original family

Ken's family, minus Polly and Annie

Neil and Pam's family (minus Sister Esther Olsen)

Sheryl and Jonathan's family (minus Elder Jason Dodge)

Brenda and Mike's family

Carl and Velvet's family

 The talent show was the best ever:

Michael and Jessica sang "The Rainbow Connection"

Brenda sang an original song called "Forget Me Not"

Grace did some magic tricks!

Kate did some tumbling

Neil and Sam recited "If" by Rudyard Kipling

A manly game

Wamba wamba

Mike and Brenda cooking French toast

Great Grandma and Gabriel reading a good book

Archery

We celebrated Gma's 75th birthday a day late

Jessica's crochet class

Puzzlers and crocheters

Gpa's class in Mayan writing

Neil mentoring Curtis in Citizinship in the World

Maia's duct tape purse

Brenda posing for a photo by Gideon

Erik and David making model rockets with Uncle Ken/Grandpa

Laura writing a letter to a missionary

Ken was a kid magnet

Launching the rockets

Aunt Brenda talking with Curtis

Mining for gems with Grandpa

Canoing

Grace on the zipline

Jason giving Gideon a ride

Curtis on the zipline

Gpa led the pledge of allegiance on the 4th of July

Confidence course, Emily in the lead

Singing Primary songs

Ken gave the Schoop Skovel

Kate at the confidence course

Sheryl at the confidence course

Singalong

Janeil and Neil

Ken and Gabriel

Thanks to all who participated and volunteered help. See you next year!

Trip to Utah

I drove with Brenda and her girls to Utah for a visit. It's good to have relatives in Utah because there's always a lot to do there.

Brenda took the girls up to Ensign Peak. She said it was steep and had lots of grafitti.

Kate composed this photo.

Grace, Maia, Kate, Laura and Sydney

I spent Saturday night and Sunday with Gail. She was on her way home from Vegas where she'd been babysitting. So she picked me up after she arrived back at the airport. We stopped by the strawberry days celebration in Pleasant Grove and had strawberries and cream. 

I enjoyed being in her home. She has built a peaceful oasis there in a beautiful walled garden setting. We had a good visit. It was nice to go to church with her, sit next to Jessie Penrod in RS, and meet Gail's neighbor/good friend named Debbie. She lives 2 doors down and is also a divorcee. Gail always sits with her in Sacrament meeting.
Gail and I also went to the church-wide meeting about missionary work. It was super great and brought back wonderful memories. I watched for Esther singing in the choir but didn't spot her.

Then Gail hosted a supper for us. Don and Lois came down and it was good to see them. Brenda and Velvet brought their five girls who had fun playing in the back yard. Gail has lots of toys for kids. 

Sisters

Back in Salt Lake we went touring Brigham Young's home. Brenda told the girls if they would each ask the sister missionaries a question, they would get an ice cream cone at the mall. So they all did, even 6-year-old Kate! The old-fashioned flower gardens were just beautiful!

Then we walked around the temple and stopped to see the Cristus statue.

An Outing

We drove up to Buena Vista and rode the ferry.

Then we went to Albany to the Carousel Museum. That's a place well worth visiting.

They are in the process of making an old-time carousel and it's taking years of painstaking volunteer work. The carvers work from pictures. Then the painters take a long time too. Finally an auto shop puts a finish on them. This is a mock up of the carousel.

Eldon on 1st Ave. W. in Albany near the museum

The designer's drawing on the wall

The animals are hollow in the middle to allow for expansion in temperature and humidity changes. So they put a time capsule in each.

Each animal has a sponsor who works with the designer to put on the details they want. For example, there's one animal who's a likeness of a family's dog, a racing dog they adopted after he could no longer race. They sponsored it after he died. They had his collar put in the time capsule.

A carver at work

Being stipple painted

Artist's rendition

The carver is working on it (well, he's taking a rest actually)

A final product

Plans for a building to house it eventually

It is right next to Montieth Park, which will draw a lot of people.

Farewell to Sister Esther Olsen

We went to Central Point to hear Esther's farewell speech. It was amazing. She is enthusiastic, glowing, and full of the Spirit.

I will try to remember (with the help of Grandpa's notes) what she said.

Her first point was that Heavenly Father can use us even with our imperfections. She told the story of a girl she knew at BYU who was relatively new to the church and felt her testimony wasn't very strong. A group went on a hike and that girl was having a hard time breathing so she stayed back resting on a bench. A boy came by and sat down beside her and started up a conversation. He wasn't a member so he began asking her about the Church. She was able to answer his questions and bear her testimony!

Esther said that loving others and teaching with the Spirit were the most important things she would need as a missionary. She used an analogy that God is like oxygen. We don't really think of the oxygen around us and how we need it to survive. God is around us too even though we're not aware of it. She talked about how we need to be worthy to have the Spirit with us.

Regarding love she told how when she was younger she was a handful and had a mind of her own. Her Dad would have to correct her but he always did it gently with love.  She knew he loved her even when he was correcting her.

She challenged us to give referrals to the missionaries so they wouldn't have to go tracting!

She bore strong testimony about the apostacy and restoration of the gospel in our day.

We could feel her love and strong spirit. I know she'll be a good servant of the Lord in Brazil.