Happy Monday!

It's been a crazy couple of weeks.

And I've been CRANKY.

But that stops.

NOW.

I decided on Friday that I was

tired of being cranky and

missed my regular cheerful self.

So.

In support of my new happier self

Heavenly Father blessed me with

a PERFECT start to a Monday morning.

The road was clear when I had

to turn left off our road.

(I sometimes wait 2 or 3 minutes!)

My FAVORITE song was on the radio

(America's "Horse With No Name")

And check out this sky!

I would have missed it, but a city truck

was driving 40 mph in a 45 zone.

Geez oh peed!

So I passed him and had to shoulder check

to make sure it was clear to go around.

And that's when I caught a glimpse of the

glorious sunrise just peeking up over the

river behind me.

(It was still dark when I was looking east...)

It was spectacular!

A good morning all around!

(Oh, and since I spent the weekend cooking...

my breakfast, snack and lunch were all

made and all I had to do was 

"grab and go" which meant I got to

work earlier enough to enjoy a little of the

last bits of the sunrise.)

Happy Monday!

Christmas Gift Giving

Oh my stinking heck.

I want this!!!!

I spend a LOT of time in front of a computer.

And it's boring.

I

Want

THIS

Retro Typewriter Keyboard

or THIS

FANCY Retro Typewriter keyboard

The first one is $326 (on sale no less)

The other one has no listed price.

Which does not bode well.

But 

be that as it may

I WANT THIS!

LOL

PS - yikes - I just looked again.  The super cool
second option is only $749!!!
Sadly the $999 version is sold out.

WHO BUYS THIS STUFF????

Haysboro Elementary School

Sondra and I were just talking.

The family is all getting together next weekend

to celebrate Mom's 80th birthday.

More about that another day.

(I won't be there...  more about that another day...)

Anyhow - she was lamenting that we wouldn't

be able to walk over to Haysboro together

and check out our "Centennial Trees" we all

planted in 1967 to commemorate 

the Centennial.

And then we started talking about memories.

Mr. Bateman, the principal. We both remember

his as quiet and gentle.

Mrs. Summers.  

She was HUGE!

And hid candies in her tissues.

(I had her in Grade 5, but on the third day

of school she fell and broke her leg, so

we got Mrs. Hearst, a substitute for the

ENTIRE YEAR!)

Talk about dodging a bullet!

Mrs. Hearst was the teacher who germinated

the seed for reading.

Mrs. Payne in Grade 4 planted it.

We read lots in her class.

But Mrs. Hearst got mismatched carpet squares

and made a rug out of them in the corner

of the room.  We could lay on the floor

and read for an hour every day!

I honestly can't remember if it was Mrs. Payne

or Mrs. Hearst who read to us everyday.

A chapter after lunch.

We did The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

Charlotte's Web.

The Borrowers.

And I was HOOKED.

I've been an avid reader ever since.

And of course Mr. Bateman left and we got

a new principal.  A woman.....  (nope, blank...)

The assistant principal was a man whose name

also escapes me but started with an S (I think)

He was my homeroom teacher.

But the Principal taught us Language Arts.

I sat in the first desk in the row right in front of her desk.

She squished herself in the tiny space between her

desk and mine.

And her breath was AWFUL!!!!!

Somebody (NOT me, I'm pretty sure it was

David Sharpe) snuck a bottle of Scope into her desk.

The entire class did detention for that one.

LOL

Our room had a back door that went right into

the principal's office.

Scared me STRAIGHT for sure!

In fact, years and years later I was applying

for a job with the school board as a school

secretary.  I had to interview with the

Principal.  When I met with him, I told him

it was the first time in my life I had actually

been IN a Principal's office!

And it didn't look anything like what I thought it would.

I've always pictured "the office" as a dark,

dungeon-esque place.

But his was bright and airy and had TOYS!

Sheesh!  What I missed out on for all those years!

Thanks Soni for the trip down memory lane!

Friday - Utah

We slept REALLY WELL Thursday night

after our trip up Timp!

We have been having fried eggs

and bacon every morning for breakfast.

Thanks so much to Soni and Greg

for letting us use their awesome "cabin".

It has been so comfortable!

I LOVE their gas stove.

Someday....

Anyhow.

We decided there were few things

left on the bucket list that we

"needed" to do.

But Heritage Park was definitely 

one of them!

So on over to Salt Lake we went.

My phone was acting up again.

So I didn't get many photos.

At this point it was refusing to even turn on.

But while we were sitting at this little park

(next to the restrooms)

it FINALLY came back to life!

So I took this picture of the adorable train.

And then I lost my glasses.

The second pair of the WEEK!

(I lost a pair on the mountain the day before...)

What a beautiful little park this is!

We spent lots of time with the young lady in one of the houses

learning all about the "bed and breakfast" and the 

quilts they were working on.

She was putting pieces together from some material

she cut off the bottom of her dress.

(she was shorter than the sister who wore it last year)

There was also a "tour guide" at the Brigham Young house.

He told us lots of interesting things we didn't know.

Quite the house!

And so creatively laid out to take advantage 

of the breezes.

But I think our favorite was the leather worker!

He insisted on staying in character and

was amazingly fascinating!

Oh, and the blacksmith.  Kyle would really like to

learn how to work with iron so he enjoyed spending

time taking to the blacksmith and seeing him

work on his current project.

(He was making an elephant head, but scrapped it)

The farm was, of course, fun.  Good to see

some horses and chickens.

I missed my boys and girls!

We spent several hours wandering around

and marveling at the tiny tiny houses families

with 9+ kids all lived in together.

Such a different life style than our's.

We came home to another visitor.

A buck this time!

Pretend you can see through the screen! 

LOL

We knew we would miss seeing

all these amazing animals when we

get back to Florida!

Thursday - Utah

We had an amazing day on Thursday.

That was the day we had pegged to climb Timp.

The weather couldn't have been more perfect.

Beautiful clear blue skies.

We were sure this little trickle was Scout Falls.

But then we thought this little stream was it.

Or this????

FINALLY!

A sign for Scout Falls.

But no water nearby...

We had a lovely trail to climb.

With the occasional wild flower along the way.

You just don't see stuff like this in Florida!

Kyle wanted to check out the cliff.

My camera didn't.

A mountain meadow.

(It was quite WARM)

And sometimes a little steep.

And seriously lacking in oxygen!

When we got to this rock in the trail we decided to stop.

We had met several people on the trail.

Most of them were coming down.

We met a gentleman here who was on his SECOND

trip to the top (and bottom) for the DAY.

He climbs to the top and then RUNS back down.

Looked to be in his late 60's.

He recommended that we stop here and head back.

It was 2:30 and based on our climbing speed he 

anticipated we would run out of daylight.

Kyle was having NONE of that.

So we left our packs on the rock

(along with Kyle's big heavy camera)

He took a bottle of water and a granola bar

and headed UP.

I climbed the hill off the the side where there

was a nice flat rock in the sun and I would

keep an eye on the trail.

We agreed that Kyle would be back around 5:00,

giving him 1.5 hours to get to the top

and an hour to get back to us.

(He's a mountain goat and we were seriously

holding him up!)

While we waited, Rod scoured the hillside for the perfect stick.

(That's the one he picked... in the center of the picture.)

Then he found a rock to sit on and started working.

Took all the limbs off.

Then used another rock to take off

the bark and smooth it all off.

Then back to the big rock to finish it off.

The wind had come up and it was getting chilly.

I wondered how Kyle was doing.

The view was amazing though!

Several groups of people came down.

Each reported seeing Kyle.

Moving fast and looking good.

5:00 came.

And went.

And then it was 5:15.

And then 5:20

And then 5:25

And we were probably burning Heavenly Father's ears off

with all the fervent prayer being sent His way.

I just knew something bad had happened.

It's a steep trail from up from where we stopped.

With lots of loose rock and shale.

And the wind was getting cold.

And then shadows were growing.

At 5:30 I couldn't take it anymore and 

we started climbing the trail.

More prayer.

More prayer.

Eyes searching.

Hearts pounding.

More prayer.

And then around the corner.

There he was.

He looked EXHAUSTED.

(He was.)

Said he had never been so tired in all his life.

And cold.

And thirsty.

And shaky.

And he never looked so good!!!!

Lots more prayers of thanksgiving.

And he drank several bottles of water.

And ate a bunch of granola bars.

And then we had to press downward because the

light really was fading.  We had about 2 hours

of daylight left.

And didn't REALLY want to finish the climb in the dark.

On the way down he regaled us with stories of his

crazy, hair-raising experiences climbing to the top.

He MADE it!

Well, he was about 50 feet short of the little

white building at the top,

but the trail vanished,

it was blowing about 20 mph

it was COLD

and he was worried about getting

back down in time.

But we are counting it as a summit.

The light was going.

And we surprised lots of deer coming out for 

their evening meals.

It was sure beautiful though!

We met an East Indian (from California) on the way up.

He made it to the top.

 He was really interesting to talk to.

He caught up to us when we were about 2/3 of the way 

down - he was RUNNING.  

Sheesh.

Congratulated Kyle on making it to the top

and then he was OFF.

Said he would see us at the bottom.

The light got really "flat" near the bottom,

Rod slipped on a rock and turned his knee

so he was behind us, but urged us to keep going.

We could see his flashlight coming down above us.

So we kept going.

And when we got to the bottom,

our little friend was there waiting to make sure

we made it!

And take our picture!

(Notice Rod's awesome walking stick - including his initials (right by his elbow)

(I bought mine the night before at a sporting goods store...)

We were tired.

But happy.

And I'm pleased to cross this OFF

the bucket list.

Whew!

Catching Up

Oops!

I (obviously) got BUSY!

What's new...

I was supposed to teach in Rockledge this past

weekend - but only had 3 students 

registered for class.

Which means it wasn't looking good.

But I had to return all the manuals, etc

I had snagged from my cabinet.

Wasn't sure I would have keys for the

Ft. Myers site so thought I would be

proactive and bring curriculum with me.

Good thing I did!

They only had 18 books and I ended

up with 20 students!

So anyway, I needed to return my stuff.

Might as well let the company pay for the trip.

Arrived at school just after 7:30

and there were 2 students in the parking lot!

(I need 5 to run the school)

They were unhappy that school was cancelled.

They were especially unhappy that they hadn't

been notified.

However, they weren't registered for the class.

So how, exactly, do you want me to notify you???

(grin)

Anyhow, I spent an hour with them finding them

a class in Orlando and also getting them set up

on the online course.

And then I did all my inventory, etc.

Just as I was finishing, Rod arrived!

He had my truck (I had his little car)

and we headed north to Samsula to the 

feed mill to get some fresh feed for the 

various animals on our farm.

1750 pounds of feed to be exact!

On the way back, we stopped in Rockledge

again to see Pops.  He was having a rough

day - a little agitated and uncomfortable.

Tim and Angie were just finishing up with the CNA

and they had to leave, so Rod decided he would

spend the afternoon there helping his Dad feel

more comfortable.

Back to the school to switch vehicles and then

I headed on home.

Kyle was working on a trailer in the back yard.

Welding up some shelves etc for some

accessories the owner wants to keep on there.

He was happy to take a break.

So we dispatched (ok, HE dispatched)

and I skinned, cleaned and processed

5 rabbits to put in the freezer.

(We have 13 more to do...)

And then it was off to Walmart to get some

groceries for the week.

When Rod got home he ordered a pizza.

(I wasn't up for cooking any sort of meat... lol)

It was a good, productive day.

My hands are still a little sore.

We did one more rabbit Sunday morning.

But my hands were just too sore.

It rained last night after work.

I left to get fuel and pick up some stuff I forgot

and while I was gone the weather cleared up

and Rod got a bunch of downed trees cleared off

the property and out to the street

while Kyle mowed everything.

No rabbits got done.

There's always tonight.

(I'm teaching in Ft. Myers again this weekend

and next, and we have GOT to get the baby chicks

out of my neighbor's barn!  They start in the rabbit

grow-out cage and then move to a coop, so

I need to get this finished!)

It's raining outside right now.

Darn it!

Wednesday

Wednesday rolled around.

And brought with it a back door visitor.

(look high outside the door)

A beautiful doe who was eating leaves most of the morning.

  

Beautiful, isn't she?

If you remember, yesterday my phone broke.

So today we drove down to Spanish Fork

to the Sprint store to see what they could do.

When we got there, they said it would take

2 hours for them to wipe it, reboot it, and

hopefully it would be all better.

So we went to the local Sams Club to look for 

some camera accessories for Kyle's camera.

(We didn't find what we were looking for)

And a couple slices of pizza.

(Sam's pizza is surprisingly good!)

And then it was time to head back to the Sprint store.

Where the technician was mysteriously unavailable.

And my phone was DEAD.

I can still take pictures.

But no phone calls.

No texts.

No internet (unless I'm at the cabin).

Yeah.

That's fabulous.

So we headed "backwards" up the Alpine Loop

and to the parking lot above Sundance

where there are several trail heads.

There's a sign that says the Mt. Timp summit trail

is only 2.5 miles!

We decided to take the "short cut" and head down the trail.

"Down" being the operative word.

It was a beautiful trail!

But it seemed to be heading DOWN.

As the day started to get late,

we figured out that it actually leads

back to the original trail head

*the trail head Kyle, Rod, Dad and Greg

headed out from 2 years ago

NO short cut.

Darn.

But a beautiful walk none-the-less.

The guys are in LOVE with Utah.

I agree - it's beautiful.

In September.

We decided not to do the entire 2.5 miles

(since we would have to then walk BACK)

and we were planning to really climb Timp

the following day.

So we called it a Preview Climb

and headed back to the cabin for the night.