Thanksgiving in Central Point

It was great to be with family at Thanksgiving. Brenda and Mike's family came, as well as Emily and Jason. Pam cooked a marvelous Thanksgiving dinner.

Erik beat Gpa at chess

Maia cracking a geode

Grandpa and the kids decorated turkey cookies

The kitchen was the hub of the celebration

Brenda and Gma playing a duet on the beautiful piano

Neil carved the turkey

Playing Bananagrams

What a spread!

We are thankful for family, good health, being back in Oregon, our testimonies, this beautiful earth, and opportunities to learn and serve.

A Week in Utah

We've had a wonderful week in Utah. Carl and Velvet's girls are so cute and we played dozens of games of Uno and Sorry with them. Grace got her braces off this week and has a beautiful smile.

Sisters: Laura, Grace and Kate

Eldon split some geodes with the girls. Grace really got into it.

We visited a place called Scheels which is even bigger than Cabellas. They had an indoor ferris wheel which we rode on. And lots of stuffed animals.

Kate and her Dad

We stopped to visit with Lloyd and Nancy and also Uncle Cliff and his family.  We spent some time with Gail. She fixed a nice lunch for us and Lois and Don and it was good to visit with them. We went to church with Gail and I got to see some old friends and neighbors, Jessie and Bob Penrod. Jessie is failing and I know that's the last time I'll see her in this life.

Sisters: Gail, Lois and Janeil

We also took Esther to supper at the Brick Oven. She's all excited about planning for a mission in May and we talked about getting prepared for that. I think she'll be a good missionary!

Grandpa and Esther

The highlight of the week was a visit to the Salt Lake Temple. The witness couple was handsome (Carl and Velvet) and the live session was really interesting. The interior is overly ornate and the murals seemed pale in comparison with Nauvoo's.

Eldon, Janeil, Velvet and Carl

One night 6-year-old Kate said family prayer and said, "We're thankful Grandpa and Grandma could come and when they die we'll be sad." So I said, "Don't be sad for us when we die because we'll be happy to go back to live with Heavenly Father."

Nebraska and Wyoming

Yesterday we spent the entire day in Nebraska. It's a long state! We started out from Omaha and ended up sleeping in Sidney, Nebraska. The only place we stopped that was significant was a cool museum called The Great Platte River Road Archway. It crosses over the freeway and contains a multi media museum about what happened on the trail, from Mormons, 49ers, the pony express, the railway, and finally, automobiles! It was definitely worth the stop and the $10 entrance fee.

We also spent the day establishing a relationship of trust with Carmen. That was greatly enhanced when she automatically changed her time when we crossed into a new time zone!

Today we headed up into Wyoming on the Mormon trail. We stopped at Chimney Rock.

By the time we got to Guernsey, we got worried about the coming storm and decided to drop back down onto I-80 to be a little safer. We did run into snow, sleet, high winds, and freezing cold, but arrived in Rawlins unscathed. We are just 5 hours from Salt Lake so I think we can make it in time to go to church with Carl and Velvet's family! We're excited.

Council Bluffs, Iowa and Winter Quarters, Nebraska

 Heading westward!

We stopped in Council Bluffs which used to be called Kanesville. There is a nice visitors center there and a senior couple gave us a grand tour.  Evidently right after Brigham Young got to Utah he turned around and went back to Kanesville (where the bulk of the Saints were), and asked that a tabernacle be built, which was done in three weeks. Just a simple log one, but large enough for a good group to meet and sustain him as president of the church with his counselors, Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards.

The current building is a replica, built by the city of Council Bluffs in order to attract visitors. After a few years they sold it to the church for $1 so they would do landscaping and upkeep on it.

Brigham Young and his counselors

I took this picture in honor of Robin who has this memorized!

Then we drove over a fanciful bridge into Omaha, which used to be called Winter Quarters. We went through the Mormon Trail Center with a very nice young sister. She drew us out about Nauvoo and learned from us too. As we were walking in we met the Hills, the other couple from the Portland Temple who served with us in Nauvoo. Small world! We walked up the hill to the cemetery.

We went to a session at the Winter Quarters Temple, which is beautiful. It's small but ornate. The front doors are gold. There are some beautiful stained glass windows and I loved the shade of green of the carpets!

Visit to New Hampshire

It was great to see the Dodges in their natural habitat. They live in a typical New England house, two stories with shutters. It's at the end of the cul-de-sac and you go down a long driveway which is downhill. They are surrounded by trees, actual forest on two sides.

Jonathan in his forest

 The house is cozier than the one in Bend, but the yard is much larger. They have seven beautiful chickens which are quite tame. They get lots of brown eggs which are laid in a convenient pile.

Jonathan has been spending weeks of his spare time rebuilding a large deck. Eldon helped to finish the slats.

The deck seen through the orchard

Jonathan also installed a cool french door which has the blinds in between the panes of glass. That's the cleverest thing since sliced bread.

Jason

Our first day Sheryl took us down to the Boston Temple. We were impressed with its beauty. A temple worker from Sheryl's ward showed us around after the session. It has fanciful chairs.

After lunch in the cafeteria we went sightseeing in Lexington and Concord. There was a visitors center with a cool interactive movie about the start of the revolutionary war. We drove over to the north bridge where there's a statue of the minuteman--the farmer who left his plow to go fight the war.

The Minuteman

The second day we worked--Dad on the deck and he and Trevor put on the mirror to the dresser. That bedroom set was bought 60 years ago by my parents and it must have been good quality to be still used by a great-grandson! Sheryl and I went to the fabric store and made valances--4 blue and 6 maroon. Sheryl cut and I sewed and they turned out cute. Serendipitously some of the walls are painted Sheryl's favorite color--maroon. The shutters are maroon and their 2 new cars are maroon!

Sheryl's new car. It has 4-wheel drive, heated seats, and gets good mileage.

It's a busy family. Trevor went to driver training class and Jason went to Institute class. Trevor played duets with his Mom. Grandpa enjoyed the hot tub.

On Saturday the whole family went to the coast. You don't think of New Hampshire as being on the coast but there are 13 miles of it. We went to a cool science center there. The lobsters were fascinating.

This morning (Sunday) we went for a walk on a nice trail in the woods. Curtis is getting tall and has large feet! Sheryl is looking good, has lost 10 lbs. and is letting her grey hair grow out. Some stranger told her she looked like her Dad.

I think the move has been good for them even though it's hard to think of them on the opposite coast from us. Sheryl said that when Jonathan had his interview to come here, she didn't want to go, but she prayed and got the impression not to fight it, that it would be good for the family. That has proved true for the boys who are doing better in school. Trevor is in a very small high school close to their home (425 students). Sheryl was also blessed to find a good job with flexible hours. They live way out in the country in a small town called Litchfield. There is no downtown to Litchfield. They live in a nice neighborhood, but they have to drive a ways to work, Sheryl north to Bedford and Jonathan south to Hudson. We're going to church in Nashua, about 20 minutes away. I feel much better about it now after seeing how well things have worked out for them.

Stuck in Chicago

Because of the stormy east coast, flights were cancelled and we got stuck in Chicago. The weather here is cold and windy, but not too bad.

We spent the day at the Museum of Science and Industry, an interesting but tiring day. Probably the most interesting exhibit was of a German submarine that was captured by the US and preserved. It was immense. Other exhibits I thought were interesting were on lightening and earthquakes.

A German U-boat

A miniature model train layout of Chicago

Eldon in a John Deere tractor

A combine

The good news is we can fly out tomorrow for Manchester, New Hampshire. What a relief! So we'll be there for Halloween after all.

Bootiful Nauvoo

Our last day of service in the temple. They cancelled the last session because of the Halloween celebration in town! But a couple from India came just before closing and wanted to do a baptism and a few initiatories. We both helped in initiatory. They were refined, elegant, and very dark skinned. The sister did the work for her sister who had died in childbirth and for a cousin.  When they apologetically asked Eldon to stay late and miss the celebration, he said, "I didn't come 3000 miles to look at pumpkins!" It was a privilege and a wonderful way to spend our last hour in the temple.

So we missed the parade, but after we finished in the temple we walked down Mulholland Street in the cold and looked at the pumpkins. Nauvoo does this each year in lieu of trick or treating. The missionaries enthusiastically join in the pumpkin carving.