changes

It's been almost 2 months since my last post. A lot has happened in that time frame including the fact that Uncle Jim, Glen's Uncle and our neighbor for the past 31 years, passed away. I'm planning on a post just about him later on, so I won't say anything more now other than he is truly missed. 

Alex is doing well on his mission. He and his current companion, Elder May, are media specialists and spend a lot of their time dealing with that (helping with editing videos and posting them to facebook, etc). Seems like every Monday they hike to a new, beautiful place in the mountains. A few weeks ago, it even started to snow on them while they were hiking.

Alex and Elder May with a church member in Murray, Utah July 2020

Hannah and Kaellen moved to Montana at the end of July without much of a warning. She was told just a few weeks before school started that there was a place for her in the dental hygiene program in Great Falls. She and Kaellen are both attending school there. Things are a bit dull without them here, but we are excited for their new adventure.

Angeles is still working at Lattin Farms and Ryan is working on the dairy here with Eric. Here's a photo of Angeles with some of her co-workers.

Ryan is 3-D printing more cup holders for the movie theatre and also a few things for Glen--including cookie cutters so Glen could bring appropriately themed cookies to the theatre as they show the Jurassic Park movies. 3-D printers really are the coolest.

Henry started kindergarten on August 4th--he doesn't actually attend as it is all online, but he seems to be loving it even if it is in his own home.

If you can't zoom in to read his sign, it says his school is O'Connor Elementary (named for Sandra Day O'Connor), his teacher is Mrs. Zelek, and they are the home of the Ocelots (how cool is that for a mascot!). His favorite colors are green and red. He wants to be a garbage man when he grows up, and his favorite things are police cars, fire trucks, garbage trucks, diggers, and helicopters.

Andrew (who started school a week or two before Henry) sent us a game he's created called Newlands. Here Eric, Hannah, Ryan, Glen, and I were testing it out (Ryan printed game pieces for it, too).

Glen, Eric, and I went to visit my mom and were able to be there to help her celebrate her 85th birthday. No cake, but a ton of ice cream...all week long. Gained a few pounds, we did.  Glen was a big help and took care of a lot of projects for my mom like trimming bushes and moving heavy things.

While we were there, Jacob and Susan and boys passed through while on a road trip. They stopped so we could all pick blackberries together. That was a fun mini-reunion.

Glen and I get to go back to Brookings in a few weeks when my sister, brother-in-law, and brother will be there and we will have a little memorial for our dad.

School started a week ago here, so Glen and I went out to lunch to celebrate what he considers his first real day of retirement. Glen was very thrilled not to be going back. His garden is producing tons of zucchini and some other squashes and a few tomatoes...and feeding some deer as well as us.

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Cecret Lake in the mountains of Utah, where Alex and some other missionaries went on a P-day hike.

Ryan's 3-D printing, Alex's special fireside, and other news, indexing, etc.

Ryan has done a few small jobs for family on his 3-D printer (like replacing a broken piece to Jacob's futon bed/couch), but he was just given his first "commercial" job--it's to 3-D print cup holders for the old Fallon Theatre. Pretty cool. It's not a large order, but after the first batch of 20, they might order more. Each one takes about 10.5 hours to print. The theatre (which will turn 100 in December) has never had cup holders, and so we're pretty excited about it. The ones Ryan designed and made just slip over the end of the chair arms.

Ryan displaying his creation

they say "Fallon Theatre" on the side

Besides cup holders, Ryan 3-D printed a humane mouse trap recently as we have been having trouble with mice (country living at its finest). He has actually caught two mice! He then releases them far enough away from our house so that we don't think they'll make it back to us.

The trap looks like 2 diving boards, one on top of the other. The top one holds steady, but when the mouse leaves the top board trying to get to the peanut butter and steps on the bottom board, the hinged bottom board can't support the weight of the mouse and the mouse drops into the 5 gallon bucket below. The design came from a site that posts free 3-D patterns (thing-a-verse). I'm just in awe of 3-D printers... and what people are willing to share.

the dark spot on the left is the little mouse

In other Ryan and Angeles news, on Wednesday, Angeles had a job interview at Lattin Farms (where Alex used to work) and got the job and started on Friday. She will be doing lots of different things like running the cash register and helping in the kitchen.

Tonight on facebook there was a live event with Brother John Bytheway, who is an author and lecturer in our church and is currently Alex's ward mission leader (he helps Alex and his companion, Elder May, with missionary work, of course).

It's a 20 minute event with Brother Bytheway talking about God's Plan for us. It really is an excellent talk. At the end, he introduces Alex and his companion--but they are wearing face masks, so you can't really get a good look at Alex. But it was awesome. Brother Bytheway is really an excellent speaker.

https://www.facebook.com/ChurchofJesusChristinMurray/videos/640098943273680

Glen has 3 small gardening plots going and (along with Kaellen and occasionally Ryan and Angeles) is still helping with building the new corrals. We have been harvesting a lot of zucchini this week. The tomato plants and eggplants have flowers, but no produce yet. The kale is ready to pick (kale isn't our favorite, but it goes good in soups). The winter squashes and peppers are coming along.

they finished pouring the pads and are now adding the manger walls

kale and tomatoes--in the back yard

struggling a bit are the eggplants, peppers, and squashes--in our traditional garden spot

various squashes--up by the highway next to the driveway

And speaking of the driveway, with 7 adults and 6 cars living here, our driveway always looks like we are breaking the rules for gatherings.

And I have been riding a bike in the mornings for exercise (since my foot hurts when I walk long distances). Gorgeous. I'm so loving it. Country living at its finest.

view from Mission road looking north

from Mission Rd looking south towards the dairy (see the gray barn in front of trees?)

Our Stake Young Women's President put out a challenge this week to do some indexing of family history records. I have been meaning to start that up again, so this week was the perfect opportunity. Glen started indexing again, too. It feels good to do something really productive. Right now we have both been indexing marriage records in Indiana. Good project.