I'm home today from work so I decided to post a few more pictures from our trip to Wendy's. The last week the weather has went from raining to a beautiful weekend. Yesterday I went home by way of the hospital with kidney stones. I've always knew that they hurt and know I know. They hurt worse than when I had Cancer. Hopefully I'll be back to work tomorrow. The pictures here are from the trip, if you look close you can see the climbers. The picture of David with Cutler is after we walked around the tower.

I was checking the blogs and realized I had not posted for 2 months. I got lazy. A lot has happened since August 9th. August we didn't really go anywhere or do anything, Lesley and Cameron and Alexis came over on a few of the Saturdays. In September we went to Wendy's. We drove out on a Wednesday, On Thursday Dawna and Wendy canned some tomatoes while David and I played with Shalon and Cutler, and got ready to go to South Dakota. Wes's parents kindly let Wes and Wendy borrow their van so we could all travel together. Friday morning we left and drove to Gillette where we had lunch. Then we drove to Devils Tower. We walked around the base of the tower and watched some climbers climbing the south side. Shalon walked most of the way and Wendy and David packed Cutler. He fell asleep before we finished. Wes carried Shalon when she was to tired to walk. Then we got back in the van and drove to Rapid City to a motel that had a water park attached to it. We had a lot of fun at the water park. Wendy has most of the pictures because I didn't take my camera. The picture that I have posted was taken the next morning as we were leaving. After the water park we went out to eat at Perkins. By that time Cutler had just about had all the fun the He could handle, So Wendy and Wes didn't get to enjoy a relaxed meal. The next morning We went to Mount Rushmore, ate lunch in Keystone, which is right by Mount Rushmore and then went to Reptile Gardens. Then the drive back to Sheridan which we got back about 9:30 on Saturday. Thank you Wes for doing all the driving. We came back on Sunday arriving home about 9:00 on Sunday night. It was a short trip but We had a lot of fun. Thank you Wes and Wendy for the great trip. Here are a few of the pictures in no particular order.
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McCall Reunion

I've had these pictures for a while and though I posted 1 last blog here are some more. The family picture was take by Bruce Tracy. He took a lot of pictures and works as a photographer. We had a lot of fun and in the evenings Joel asked Mom and Dad questions about their life's. It was really neat hearing the stories of youth and early married life. We played games, went on walks, went to McCall on Friday to eat by the lake. We didn't really want to go home to the plus 100 degree heat.

Our Bishopric got changed today, Bishop Johnson took a job in Germany being principle at a school on one the military bases. So today we got a new Bishop which is Gaylen Spear, 1st Counselor is Lee Long and 2nd is Stoney Schulthies. I've been Gaylen's home teacher for the last few years I guess now that I'll have to go more often. David started on his mission papers tonight. Ross

Time flies and I'm not even haveing all that much fun. Wendy keeps after me that I still need to blog the rest of our trip so I'll post some more pictures of the last of the trip at Andrew and Jana's home, Some pictures of Soren and Sydney, Pictures at Wendy's and some pictures of our reunion at McCall. Since we have got home life has been pretty busy. We have went to Boise several times to see Alexis. I am working the late shift and Saturday for the 2nd time in three weeks to help cover for some other employee's time off. But when this week is done I won't work another Saturday for 6 weeks. Dawna and I did go to the fair last Wed. We didn't stay to long because we had taken some of the young women over. We did eat fair food and had a good time while we were there. Ross

Well this is not the second part of the trip or even the sibling reunion, For those of you that don't know Lesley had some complications with her pregnancy so they started Her 6 weeks early. Lesley and Cameron were blessed with a cute 4lb 12 ounce, 19 inches long baby girl. I got to hold Her for about 20 minutes tonight. I have never held a baby that small before. Lesley is doing fine, Alexis will be in the nicu for a few more days for observation. I have a few pictures, hopefully Cameron will post more.

This last week has been a lot of fun. We left July 3 to go to Jana and Andrews'. We drove to Cheyenne Wy. that day going about 780 miles. David said he had all the car time he needed, little did he know what was to come. The next day we traveled to Missouri, We stopped at the Liberty Jail visitors center, and then went to go to Independence to see the temple lot but when we got there they had the streets blocked off for the evening fireworks show. We then plugged in Jana's address into gps and headed for Columbia. We got to Jana's at about 9:45 there time. We had traveled another 760 miles that day.

We Stayed Sunday with Jana, Andrew, and Sydney went to Church with them and just enjoyed the day of not driving. Jana made Dawna and I a birthday cake since my birthday was the 3rd and Dawna's was on the 8th.

Monday Dawna, David and I left to go to Nauvoo. We cut across Missouri seeing a lot of country, We went through Mexico, Palmyra, and several other towns in Missouri. We got to Nauvoo and took both the carriage ride and wagon ride to see the historical parts of old Nauvoo. Then we ate lunch, walked around the Nauvoo temple. We went to see the cultural hall, John Brownings' gun shop, Scoville bakery, Stoddards tinsmith, and the Drugstore. We went to the Comunity of Christ tour of the mansion house and Joseph Smith home bought was to late for the last tour. We walked around them and just saw them from the outside. We them went to the records house and down loaded a cd of all the family names that Dawna and I could remember. Last of all we went the cemetery to see the grave of Edmund Durfee.

We stayed in Keokuk that night resting our tired feet. The next day we went down to the Mississippi river to see a old river boat museum. Then we watched a tug and its tow go through the lock. Keokuk has an observation deck built on top of a railroad bridge to overlook the river and locks.

We have done a lot more but I'll blog it later

Wow, more than a month has gone by since the last post. Time just goes by. I keep thinking I'll have some new pictures but I haven't taken many lately. Since the last post David and I have poured a new sidewalk, Mom has gone to girls camp and the weeds just keep growing in the garden. Memorial Day weekend had David and I setting up forms and mixing cement. We poured half of it on Saturday and the rest of it on Monday. We were both pretty tired when it was done. The next weekend I got some new outdoor lights to light the walk at night.

I went up a week ago last Monday to help set up the tents for girls camp, I drove up the motor home so Dawna would have a place to sleep and so they would have a refrigerator for some of the food. Just as we got ready to leave a bad thunderstorm hit around mitchell butte. The road by the siphon got one lane washed out and there were rocks all over but by the time we got to the bridge the storm had passed. It hadn't hit camp hycliffs at all. Stoney and Maria Schulthies, Weston and Lori Schulthies, Kevin and Maria Draper, Penny Elsworth and Jan Wilcox went to help set up. With that much help it went up really fast. Dawna went up the next day and helped take the girls up and I went up Tuesday evening to see if I could help out. Penny had taken Jan Wilcox home because of abdominal pain. Turn out later that it was appendicitis and she had surgery later that night. Girls camp went pretty good and Dawna and all the girls and leaders packed up and got home on Thursday. She went back to work on Friday. David and I packed the tents and put all the equipment up last Saturday.

This week we have been slowly getting ready to go to Missouri. Today I changed oil in the car then found oil in the engine coolant. Found out the intake gasket is blown and will need replaced before the trip. Luckily I found it before we left. K and K and troops came over tonight for some homemade Ice Cream. We had a good time out on the front lawn enjoying the evening with there family and Grandpa and Grandma.