BYU or Bust

Today is the last day to have Sean at home with us. He is busy packing up his things for BYU. We leave tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn. He has so much stuff, clothes, tv, video system, clock, backpack, bath supplies, etc. He asked the other day if he was going to bring a bike... where would we put it? Plus Page and I have to load our suitcase in the car too. Should be very interesting. We are expecting to be in the car 8 hours. First stop will be the dorms to get Sean checked in. I am really envious of Sean. What a great experience.

I probably will not be blogging the remainder of the week. I will give y'all an update when I get back. Rise and Shout, the Cougars are out!

Family Outing

This afternoon, Page, Sean and I took a little drive up Chief Joseph Highway. The highway starts only about 30 minutes from our house, and ends at the Beartooth Highway. Just minutes into our trip on the highway we saw a young bear running up the hill. Sean got a great picture of it on his camera. We were thrilled to see a bear. Then to our amazement just a turn up the hill we saw yet another small cub. He was smaller than the first. He was sitting in the middle of the road. As soon as he saw us he ran up into some trees. We never did see a mama bear. The scenic byway is beautiful. We saw rivers, waterfalls, lakes, meadows, majestic mountain peaks. We were hoping to see some Rock Chucks, but they were all hiding today I guess. We finished the trip down in Red Lodge and stopped at a great candy store that had every candy you could think of. We were good and only bought a couple small pieces of taffy and fruit slices. It took us four hours to get to Red Lodge on the highway. We were so high up, we even saw some remaining snow. On the way back we took the fast route around the mountain range and got home in about an hour. But all we saw was desert. We had a good time. We wanted to do something with Sean before he left for BYU. Lacey is up in Washington visiting a friend so she missed out on all the fun, but I'm sure she is having her own adventures.

Here is Sean at the top of Dead Indian Pass on Chief Joseph's Highway in Wyoming

Here I am on the Montana side of the Beartooth ready to descend down to Red Lodge.

Old Testament Time

Here it is midnight and I am still up! Haven't had much sleep the last few nights. You see, Page started teaching seminary again yesterday. Early morning seminary! She is so excited to be teaching again. She pulled out all her old seminary boxes and over the last few days we have been decorating her class. She goes all out. We have been up at the church building everyday in her classroom (which she has to share with the scouts on Wed. and the High Preist group on Sundays). We put colored butcher paper on the bulletin boards, we hung up banner for each of the 12 Tribes of Israel on the wall. We had to hang Old Testament pictures on the wall. The room had desk chairs. Not good enought! So we had to haul them all out of the room and replace them with tables and chairs.

Last weekend we went to all the wards in Powell to meet with all the freshmen and sophmores and gave them invitations and ark animals (that they had to bring the first day of class for a treat- they had to sit in the seat that had a picture of the animal they chose... a random seating assignment). Those kids that didn't show up to the meetings, we drove to their homes to meet with them personally. Some were way outside of town and we got to see a lot of cows and chickens. It only took us 3 hours to make the visits...

Last night we ran into Cody to go to WalMart for last minute supplies. We got back into town about 1 a.m. Tonight, we went up and made a large well with butcher paper that said "Fill your Buckets with Living Water, from the scriptures". Page then is making water jugs to set around the well with the kid's names written in Hebrew. Right now she is making labels for small bottles of water that tells the kids to drink from the scriptures 10 minutes a day. Real cute! This morning she had a big Goliath on the wall in the cultural hall and the kids all shot at him with slings and ping pong balls. She taught them that they have to slay their own Goliaths, whatever they may be. How come seminary wasn't this fun when I was a kid? Anyway, I hope I get some sleep soon.

I have also been busy at work recruiting a general surgeon who is here from Idaho. So I have had a busy few days.

Catching the Fat

A common virus that causes colds can be a factor in obesity, according to a study released Monday offering further evidence that a weight problem may be contagious.

The adenovirus-36 (Ad 36) has already been implicated as the cause of weight gain in animals, but with this study researchers showed for the first time that it can also cause humans to pile on the pounds.

The findings could accelerate the development of a vaccine or an antiviral medication to help fight the battle of the bulge alongside diet and exercise.

This really explains a lot. I obviously have some type of virus......

Let's go clothes shopping, Sean!

Sean leaves for BYU in little over a week and Page and I had a great idea.... let's take Sean to get some clothes before he heads down to Utah. You see, last Wednesday, when Page and I went to Billings for my bagpipe lessons (yes, I have now had three lessons and I can "throw down a D"!) we stopped at Penny's because Page needed some new work clothes (yes, Page has a new job at the bank in town working in the loan department) and we found that they are having a great sale. Some things were marked down 75%! We saw some great clothes for Sean to look like a new college man. No more t-shirts and ratty jeans....

Well, we took him to Penny's last night. As soon as we get off work at 5 p.m. we rushed him up to Billings, and specifically to Penny's. He asked on the way up if they had those sweaters that have the half zipper on them. I answered, yes, they have everything! Oops, I was wrong. They didn't have those kind of sweaters, and it pretty much went down hill from there. He didn't like the layered look that we saw on the manikins because they were "flannel" shirts. He tried on a sweater, but we talked him out of it. We wanted him to get a vest jacket, and we almost got him to do it, but at the last minute he put it back. He did end up buying two henley's and some t-shirts. You see, we were not paying for the clothes, he was, with his own money. You see, Sean is very frugal with his money and so he wasn't buying hardly anything. If it was our money being used on this shopping spree I think he would have picked up a few more things. Page really wanted him to get some pants, but he only wanted Old Navy jeans, so we quickly headed over to Old Navy before they closed and he bought a pair of jeans and some khaki cargo pants. Page wanted him to buy some green cargo's too, but he didn't want to because it would have taken another $20 from his savings. Page and Sean had a little "discussion"....

While that little battle was going on between Page and Sean, I had to chuckle because it reminded me of a battle I had with my Mom when I was a kid buying school clothes. She saw on the rack the ugliest pair of yellow cords pants that you have ever seen. I had not seen yellow cords before that, nor have I seen them since. Yet, there they were on the sales rack! (yeah nobody wanted them that's why they were on clearance). My mom fell in love with them and thought I had to have them. I told her no. We got in a little tiff, or "discussion", about them. I was putting my foot down. I mean, I would never wear them so why spend the money on those pants, when I could use that money for something I would actually wear. Why couldn't we get brown or blue cords like everyone else? Well, my mom had a melt down and right then and there with a cart full of my school clothes she said "Fine, we won't buy anything then!"... Ah, she was playing dirty now. If I wanted all my other new school clothes or would have to accept the yellow cords. I wasn't a dumb kid, so I sat there and said, "let me look at them again". I held the yellow cords in my hands and then became a great actor (in my mind) and said, "well, these would go great with 'this' shirt or 'that' shirt", etc..... My mom got all excited and agreed with me. So I told her I wanted them, so she added them to the cart, and I was able to get all the other school clothes I picked out and the yellow cords. We took them home. I can actually say, I do not think I ever wore those yellow cords to school that whole year, and for some reason my mom never asked about them. (Hey Karie- this all happened up at Payless on Woodruff. I was doing my school shopping at Payless! no Penny's for me!)

Well, back to Sean. He ended up getting the green pants and we were all happy. I think he did the right thing and gave into Page.

Perseid Shower

Did you watch the Perseid Meteor Shower last night? It's an annual event and last night was the best night to view it. They say you can see up to 50-100 shooting stars an hour! Well, if you live anywhere near me you were out of luck last night.

First, all the farmers around town decided to burn their fields yesterday. We were in one big smoke cloud all day and into the evening. Plus there are fires near Yellowstone and in Montana which helped to block the night sky too.

Lacey and I decided to take a chance and drive up on the bluffs last night to see if we could see anything. We thought if we got above the smoke we might get lucky. All we found up there was more smoke and blocked skies. It was really disappointing because the night before the sky was clear and you could see a million stars. This is the best area for sky gazing since there isn't a lot of city lights, but how can you compete with smoke and fire?

On the way home we did manage to run over two rabbits, and several more attempted suicide but escaped. Oh well, there is always next year.

James E. Faust

President James E. Faust, 2nd Counselor to our Prophet and President of the Church, Gordon B. Hinckley, passed away this morning. He had been failing in health the last few years, and passed away from old age. He was 87. I use to love to hear his stories, especially his Christmas stories he would tell at the Christmas Devotional. He served the Lord with all his heart, mind and strength. Well done. He lived a good life and fought the good fight. My prayers go out to his family.

Who gets the flu in the summer?

Obvioulsy, I do! I have been sick since the weekend. Missed work all day Monday and Tuesday and half day Wednesday. Still feel tired and sluggish. It stinks to get sick in the summer. I can understand a winter cold when it's 20 below zero, but it is in the 80's this week. Very nice weather. Lots of people at work are getting sick, so it just passed along to me. Hazards of working in health care I guess, but you would think I would have great immunity to germs working in this environment so long. But hey, I'm sharing the fun, Page is coming down with it and I think the kids are next.

Bagpipping

I went to my first bagpipes lesson last night in Billings. I got my practice chanter and a lesson book. I've been wanting to learn the bagpipes for awhile now. I wanted to start in Lousiana, but the lessons fell on a night I had to be at church as the Bishop, so I had to defer my desire to learn the pipes. Then we moved to Montana and I saw a bagpipe band in the 4th of July parade. I still wanted to learn but thought since there was no local band to practice with, I was out of luck. Then I moved to Texas and looked around to see if there was a local band where I could get lessons, and couldn't find anything. Now I am in Wyoming, and I feel like if I ever am going to learn to play the pipes then I have to get more pro-active, so I contacted the band in Billings and they give free lessons every Wednesday night. After beginners are good enough, they let them join the band and they can perform with them. How cool is that? I actually contacted them last winter and was going to do it, but then got called as a ward missionary, and we did our visiting on Wednesday nights, so again, I couldn't make the lessons. Right now I have Wed. nights free so I made the big leap last night and went. Page came with me and she did some errands in Billings. So look for me at the next Livingston 4th of July parade, marching down the street in my kilt playing the bagpipes!