LONG, LONG TIME...

Okay, It's been almost a year. I've had the mistaken idea that I need to post photos with everything. Sad to say, I don't take that many photos. I'll do better.

Thought I'd catch everybody up on what happened over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Only had to work half a day on Wednesday. Got home around 2pm and decided to help Janet with a little bit of laundry. Found the clothes still wet so I turned the dryer back on and let them fluff. While we were waiting for that I mentioned that RC Willey was having a sale on beds so Janet and I went to the store to see if there was a bed we might want to buy. Janet has been putting up with my extra firm bed for years, so I thought it was time that she get a softer bed for her hip. It took a couple of hours but we found one that we both like.

Back to the laundry. Went back a couple of hours later and they're still wet. Did it once more, just in case I did something wrong. OOPS!! By this time it's almost 7pm and we've contacted the neighbors to play Nertz. Have you heard about our Nertz games? I'll tell you sometime. Anyway, I called the neighbors back and asked them if we could use their dryer to do a couple of loads. They are so nice. Well, we played cards 'til almost 11pm and I retreived our last load of clothes from their house. Thanks again Dave and Nancy.

Thanksgiving morning...I don't remember...I slept through it. Not really. Got up around 9am and watched a little tv and got ready for the day while Janet slaved away in the kitchen. Sarah and I went to the grocery store to use the "turkey bucks" that we had. It was the last day they were valid and we had $11.50 worth. Janet and Sarah and I are gonna use the turkey as the main portion of a Christmas dinner box to leave on someones doorstep here in the next couple of weeks. I heard that someone nearby lost their job just recently.

So, after getting things ready we loaded up the car and raced Eric and Britnee up the freeway to Grandma and Grandpa Schmalz's home. We had Eric and Britnee, Jessica and Josh, Sarah, DeAnn and her family and Karen and Tim there. Two long tables and lots of food. DeAnn brought stuffin' muffins. You bake the stuffing in muffin pans. I thought that was a pretty neat little trick. All the food was great and I overdid it, of course. Then while I slept it off the kids helped their mother put things away. I didn't get to say goodbye to anyone.

Friday morning we woke up and started cleaning our bedroom to make room for the new bed. Forgot all about the dryer not working. Well, I was hesitant to call out a repairman at the prices I was sure they would charge on a holiday weekend. I happened to be talking to the Bishop and asked him who he uses to fix appliances. He suggested one of our neighbors down the road and he came over to "take a look" with his tool bag in tow. We tore the thing apart and tested everything you can imagine. It came down to the heat sensor on the exhaust port. One inch long, quarter inch wide, plastic part that costs $10.00. And they had one at the parts store, in stock. I ran over and picked it up and put it in and the dryer is working great now. Could you imagine the cost of having a repairman out to do that? I figure well over a hundred dollars. We're gonna get a gift certificated for our neighbor and give it to him because he wouldn't take our money.

Saturday was the "BIG GAME." For those of you who don't live in Utah, that's the BYU vs Utah football game. Some have come to calling it the holy war. I don't subscribe to that because their are plenty of Mormons at the University of Utah. Heck, even the president of BYU is a graduate of Utah. What's even more ironic is that the president of Utah is a graduate of BYU. Huh? That's right. Anyway...The only thing that counts is that BYU won this particular game on Saturday. We went to our other neighbors house and they hosted us to a brunch and their 106 inch screen tv to watch the game. We had fun and food and plenty of it. Well, maybe not enough fun, because we wound up playing for Nertz at our house later that evening.

All in all it was a fun holiday and I'm looking forward to the Christmas season coming up. I hope all my family was happy and full of turkey. Here's wishing all of you a Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas.

Frosty Mornings at American Fork Boat Harbor

I work for American Fork City. We have a boat harbor on Utah Lake. We leave the gates open all winter for the ice fishermen to access the lake. I drive down there a few times each winter to check out the icebergs that are driven up on the jetty or skip rocks on the ice to see how far I can get one out there (it sounds really cool on thin ice.) Once or twice a winter an inversion occurs and the air just over the lake is super cold while the mountain benches are warmer. Here are some pictures that I took this morning while down at the harbor.

8:30 am and the fog is still obscuring the sun.

The fog creates a coat of frost on the twigs of bushes and trees and continues to build each day as long as the weather doesn't get too high. This morning it was 5 to 10 degrees. It probably won't get above 25 degrees today.

You can see the tracks of the ice fishermen out across the ice. They'll disappear in the next storm. The ice here is probably 10 to 12 inches thick.

This is our "lighthouse" or marker. You can see this piece of pipe for miles out on the lake. It's about 10 feet tall and 6 feet in diameter and painted yellow. The street lamp is the light part of the lighthouse.

Very beautiful frost on barbed wire.

A few weeks ago I took a picture of this elk with my camera phone. You coudn't really see him all that well. Well, he hasn't come up to the fence since then so I can get a better photo of him. You can also see the frost on the fence and bullrush in the foreground.

Christmas...FINALLY!!

Sorry it's taken so long to get photo's of Christmas on here. This is from just my camera. I need to download photo's from Janet's camera and add them. Enjoy the photo's...

Janet really enjoyed our time with G'ma and G'pa locked in the house because of the snowstorms that were pounding Utah during the holidays.

We spent most of our time playing games like domino's and...

push the dummy (thanks Donna and family.)

Christmas dinner was delicious, but it wasn't the same without Linda and her family. We were prepared and looking forward to their visits.

We had over a foot of snow by Christmas day. Add another foot a week later and we're still driving on snow packed roads today.

Sign of the times? Both G'ma and G'pa were playing with their new digital cameras.

Sarah was quite happy with all her new games and clothes...

Mandy really enjoyed her wrapping paper...

Merry Christmas little one.