Sad, Sad News.....

We just learned from President Beckett that Kirk and Jenny Hess lost their 4 year old son. They were in Utah after Christmas and on New Years Day went sledding in Rock Canyon in Provo. Their little boy hit a tree and died. I am in shock and numb. He is just the cutest little guy! Here we have been doing all these wonderful things as a family and have been protected and safe, and they have had such a different outcome. Oh, we just never know what the next day will bring, do we?! The Hess family are wonderful people and we send all our love, thoughts, and prayers to them at this time. The funeral is on Monday.

The Cougarhaven SNOWMAN!

I'd like to introduce you to the Cougarhaven Snowman. He has decided to live right in front of the cabin and greet those who come by.
As you can tell, he is an avid BYU Cougar supporter. Christine and Meredith spent a lot of time with him this morning getting settled in and dressed. He loved his outfit that I got at Swiss Days!

He's already made friends with the snowplower. When our street was getting cleared, the snowplower waved and announced to the girls that he was very impressed with our newest member of the family!

Christine and Meredith standing on the bank in back of Mr. Cougarhaven making sure he is settled and feels welcome. He loved all the female attention! (He is really quite tall and big, but the girls are standing behind him up on a bank of snow.)

Please take good care of the cabin while we are gone! We'll see you next month after the wedding!

Snowstorm

We had a really interesting night last night! I don't think any of us slept very much at all! The wind was howling, the snow was falling, and about 3a.m. we had a thunder and lightening storm! Yes, it's true! That was a first for us--thunder and lightening during a snowstorm! But this is the beauty we woke up to and have had today. Looking north from the end of our street. So white and pretty and peaceful.

Everyone pitching in to help shovel the south driveway. Ironically we do have a snowblower in the north garage, but the tires are flat and we didn't have any gas. After manually clearing the snow all day, I think we'll get the snowblower up and going for the rest of winter. It's so much easier!

A look from the porch. Shaun got the truck cleaned off earlier and now the shoveling begins. This got higher as the day went on!

We got quite a bit last night. Digging out the truck.

Robert and Meredith's turn at shoveling.

Christine and Darla sitting on top of the snow pile. Darla's in her cute new sweater. You know her--if we were outside, she had to be out there with us even if she was shivering! Notice how high the snow is this time: almost up to the porch roof! Christine made a slide down the other side to the AC units. Very creative. We had fun working together and have to admit a few snowballs might have been thrown.....

I Think I'm Caught Up

Time just rushes by up here, but I think I'm caught up finally with my blogging. Check it out by scrolling down to see the entries and pictures for the last week.

I'm off to bed. It is snowing!!!!

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!

Sledding--Part 2!

We tried out the new sleds yesterday. What a fun time full of laughing, joy, smiles. You know--there is something to be said for feeling like a child. So carefree.
Meredith and Christine going tandem. Josh is hanging on to the back while they got situated and then he gave them a slight shove off, and down they FLEW!

Christine flying past as Mere got a photo. Look at that grin!

Josh hit the jump that someone else had made a few days before and ate it!

Christine and Meredith with their 'it's been a long snow day and we're tired' faces.

I'm joining them with my sunburned, wind-chapped, tired face. What a good day!

Here I am whizzing by. I finally figured out you steer them with your feet! Once I realized that it went much smoother.

I stopped when I finally ran into a snowbank. We were all laughing so hard when I landed back in the snow!

Josh giving Christine the 1-2-3 ready, go, push........

......and down she goes!

These are the fields where we sledded at the bottom of Interlaken where our cabin is. This is looking up at our neighborhood. We are at the top of the far left ridge.

Christine on the tobaggon. None of us could stop laughing when we would go down.

Hanging on and steering her way down the hill.

Meredith after she crashed. The sled took off without her the rest of the way down. We're going to do this again on Saturday.

Snowmobiling!

Today we went snowmobiling. We over look the Wasatch Mountain State Golf Course, and in the winter they do cross country skiing and snowmobiling since you can't golf in the snow! We were scheduled for a 3 hour tour (yes, we kept singing the Gilligan's Island theme song....) from 10am-1pm. We arrived at 9:30 to sign in and get our helmets, etc.
Here is Josh getting ready to go. We pulled out all the ski clothes, gloves, hats and 'stuff' and fortunately we weren't missing anything from last year, except pants for Christine who has grown a lot, but she was able to wear a pair of Meredith's.
Robert, Duff, and I getting ready.

In the car for the short ride to the park. Natalie, Meredith, Robert (Nat's boyfriend), Christine, and Josh. Meredith found her zinc chap stick and everyone loaded up.

Natalie and Robert in the back seat.

Christine and Josh.

This is Zach our guide. He is way cute and has a very smooth, charming personality. He is from Cache Valley, and we had a blast with him. He more than earned his 'tip'!

I got mixed up on this one, but this is the family when we were all done. Whew--we made it! Zach told us he took us on some pretty 'knarly' trails today and that we did a great job. He had a change of plan 1/2 way through, took a poll, and decided we could handle going to Cascade Springs. What he didn't tell us was that to get there we had to cross a stream! Yeah. So we get to the bank of the stream and he shoots across it to the other side. We are all looking at him like he's nuts! And he just smiles that charming smile and waves us to do the same! There was NO WAY I was going to do that. Finally my turn came. I sat at the top of the bank, gunned it, went down the bank ACROSS THE WATER, hit the bottom of the bank on the other side and shot up to the other side. I screamed at the top of my lungs the whole way across, but I DID IT! (l-r: Duff, Meredith, Christine, Natalie, Robert, and Josh)

This was really pretty. It was a narrow trail through a forest of gorgeous pine trees laden with snow. It was 'magical' and we stopped for some pictures.

The wind was blowing at the top of a trail. This is looking west. It drops off to the side, and does the same going east. It was beautiful.

Meredith and Josh. This was the first time she had ever snowmobiled. Her dad is a personal injury attorney and because of his line of work was always cautious with adventurous things. She was a trooper and did a great job. She LOVED it!

Another view of the tree trail.

Since I'm the one taking the pictures, I'm usually not in them, but here is the rest of the fam! Isn't it sooooo pretty. Nature is truly inspiring and heavenly. (l-r: Christine, Josh, Mere, Duff, Natalie, and Robert)

See--you can tell how much we liked this area!

About half way through, we stopped in a meadow and had a snow picnic. We had big homemade sub sandwiches, chips, brownies, and water bottles. It was a great lunch outdoors and we were hungry! We are done and getting ready to head on out! (l-r: Josh, Mere, Natalie)

Christine and I on the windy trail taking advantage of a photo opportunity. She was sure wishing she was 16 instead of 13 so she could have her own machine. But she was a great sport being Duff's passenger.

Overlooking Heber and Midway. Wow--so peaceful. We will definitely do this again. Anybody want to come along???

(journal: I just want to mention about Zach and Christine. We stopped several times in some meadows and had free time to zip around and 'play'. At one of the stops, Duff was going too fast for her and going on some jumps up the hill, and she got scared. So Duff and I traded machines and he took my single one and I took his double one and told Christine she could go with me and I would go slow and careful. She wouldn't budge. Zach rode up next to us and 'charmed' her into getting on with him and he would take her for a ride. Well, he is SO cute, and with his 'flirting', she hopped right on with him and they took off through the trees. She was holding on for dear life, but happy as could be to be on the back of his snowmobile. Oh to be 13 again! You should have seen her face. I think a little crush was going on. But after that, she wasn't afraid of anything the rest of the trip! What a good guide!)

First 'Home'!

Mike and Adrianne found their apartment today! It is a 2 bedroom, 2 bath in Ladera Ranch. We're so excited for them and for us too, because they will just be 'down the street' so to speak! It comes with a washer and dryer AND refrigerator! In California that is a BIG deal. You usually have to have ALL of your own major appliances!

Mike will be moving in in TWO WEEKS!

CONGRATULATIONS you two!

New Look

I'll change the blog over to it's January 'look' when I get back to California. I have found that what works for me is to print it out at the end of each month and save it to a disc also, but I don't have time to do it here in Midway right now. So I'll print when I get home and then update with a new look!

Sleds!

Duff and Josh went in to town this morning to grab a few ingredients I don't normally keep here at the cabin so we could make some caramel corn later on and came back with 3 sleds as well! We are going to be having some fun!

Two of them look just like these, and the 3rd one is a black, heavy plastic one. When you come into our 'neighborhood' there are some alfalfa fields that everyone sleds on so we will probably try those out.

We went through all the snow clothes and equipment today. I don't know what I was thinking: Christine cannot wear her clothes from last year! It's good Meredith has an extra pair of snowboarding pants she can wear tomorrow for snowmobiling.

I've been thinking about New Year's goals for myself for this year. I've decided to narrow it down to 3 or 4. I think I will be able to keep them better if I only have a few and do them well.

So I'm being more careful about my choices. President Hinckley's counsel at the end of every conference keeps coming back to me: to be just a little better each day. I think I'm going to use that to help me make my decision for goals.

It's cold, and we have gorgeous icicles hanging from the rooflines. I'm about footballed out! Had tacos for dinner. I'm tied with Christine in Speed (card game) but she can still whup me in Dance Dance Revolution!

Good Night!

Surprise Party for Bob Evans--5-0!

We hosted a surprise party for Bob Evans's 50th birthday party. We've been friends with Gwen and Bob since Gwen and I met working on the campaign for Steve Nissle when he ran for office at BYU in the mid 1970's. Yeah, a LONG time ago! Boy was he surprised!

Bob wearing his 'bestest' birthday present: a BYU hoodie. Of course, with Duff in his BYU hoodie in the game room.

Keifer, Miles, and Matt playing pool in the game room. (keifer is one of Bob's sons, and Miles, and Matt are nephews.)

Natalie and Lauren Evans Bullock. Nats and Lauren were born just a few weeks apart.

Keifer in the kitchen making his 'famous' salsa. It is soooo delicious, he should sell it. For real!

The Evans Family: Top-Bottom: Gwen, Justin and Bob, Keifer and Trevor (Lauren's hubby) and Lauren.

Bob with nephew Malachi on his lap getting ready to blow out the candles.

Opening up his favorite present. He'd been wanting one of these, especially since the bowl game victory.

Gwen prepared a feast. Albondigas soup (she'll post the recipe soon!), turkey noodle soup, relish plate, fruit salad, shrimp, chips, crackers, and dips. Lots of Bob's family were there to surprise him.

Bob's mom, LaRita. Ironically, she was the nurse-midwife that worked with the OB/GYN that I went to when I lived in Utah and had Mike and Josh. She took care of me on many visits and helped to deliver the boys. Who would've known that her son would marry Gwen???

Shaun, Bob, and Meredith at dinner. It was a fun night. It was 11pm before we looked at the clock and realized how late it was and they still all had to get down the mountain!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOB. The 50's aren't so bad!