Tucano's

Today we worked our little 'tushies' off taking care of all the cleaning of the cabin before we have to close it up until the next time. We have a checklist for each room and each family member's responsibility. Everyone has to take care of their own bedroom and bathroom, and then we rotate all the common areas each time we come.

We decided to have a treat by going to Provo to have dinner at one of our favorite restaurants: Tucanos. It is a brazilian grill steakhouse. It is a lively place--a lot of hustle/bustle with the waiters bringing you every kind of meat, poultry, pork, fish, vegetable imaginable along with grilled pineapple. So yummy. And of course the salad bar that you start with. Meredith took some pictures, and she or I will post them later. Check out her blog to see some more pictures of our snowmobiling and sledding as well!

(journal: Darla is back to her old self. That is such a relief. Josh and Meredith went to Springville to meet with their photographer to finalize their wedding pictures. It's been fun to meet Robert. He is very good to Natalie. Shaun is gearing up for the new semester. We learned a very valuable lesson about being in snow country in the winter: don't park your vehicles all the way up to the garage in the driveway. We often hear the snow sliding off the roof; we have this metal type shingle roof on the cabin with high pitches. Today we heard this LOUD crash of snow sliding off and went out to see that the snow and accompanying ice that had been wedged inbetween the dormer windows had crashed right onto the hood of the truck. The whole thing needs to be replaced. It made a huge dent from one side to the other and chipped the paint off as well. We already had the upper garage full of cars, so Duff parked the truck last night in the driveway, being too tired to drive it down to the basement garage. He had this little voice tell him to pull back a bit and ignored it. He sure wishes he would have listened now!

Last night while we were finishing dinner, we were all sitting around the table and the conversation turned to President Hinckley and how much longer we hope to have him and how much we have loved this prophet. That led to who was each of our favorite prophets in each of the standard works. We got to pick 5 from each one. Quite a good discussion. It was great to talk about that with our children and hear who they loved and why. It went on for a couple of hours. We have had really hard challenges over the last 8 years with kids but when we have times like this it is hard to remember them. I wish it could always be like this. I guess that is what eternity is for!

Today is also the anniversary of when Duff''s dad died 27 years ago. Sometimes it seems like yesterday. He died in a car accident at Soldier Summit on his way to Price to help his sisters plan their mother's funeral. She had passed away that morning. He fell asleep at the wheel and went right over the cliff. A man chopping wood saw it and flagged another car down who then found a phone and called 911. He died in a Payson hospital. The funerals were a day apart in the dead of January. I fell down Jeaneen's basement stairs the morning of the funeral and broke my leg. I walked on it the whole day as best I could, but I was in so much pain. I got a cast the next day and crutches. I ended up having to stay 2 weeks in Utah with a toddler, baby, and a grieving mother-in-law until I could have a walking cast. Duff had to go back alone and start his very first job since his graduation from college. We had only moved to California about two weeks prior, and we didn't even have a phone hooked up yet. It was a Sunday and my day had come over to our apartment to help Duff get the crib and beds set up for our first night in our new place. He left to go home and just as we were putting the boys down for bed, a knock came at our door. I answered it and it was my dad who drove all the way back to Huntington Beach to have to tell us that John was dead. We packed up and went back to my parents house to get ready to go to Utah. Our car broke down when we got back. It was quite a time!