Field of Dreams

After 4 hours in the ER, Laryn ended up with six stitches and Blaire ended up with a goose egg after fainting and landing on the ER floor. Her eyes were a little crazy the next day.

Thanks for the Father's Day gift. I enjoyed my guy day, the whole hour of massage, hot towels, and straight blade shave. The little TV in front of me was a nice touch too. When I am rich and famous, I may go more often. That really is me underneath the towels and it felt sooo good.

Finally, my field of dreams. After hours, and hours, and hours, and hours of leveling and lots of help from the Hales it is finally coming together. The grass is planted and the sprinklers work. Now we will hope for the best. If all goes well the the playing should be great with lots of room for family fun. If we get some snow, the terrace will create a great jump for a snowmobile. The trencher really worked me over and I am still not recovered.

Arizona- The trip to Flagstaff to see the Wells' proved to be everything that we hoped it would be. On the trip down we were able to spend some time on Temple square in Salt Lake and see the new Church Library. As always, the Church built a beautiful facility with state of the art media access. It was hot and the A/C was a treat! After staying with Haley and Sev we headed south. For Laryn the "highlight" of the trip was a stop in Panquitch, Utah. If you haven't been there, it is a little, rural farming community in the middle of know where. Of course this isn't unusual if you are from Basin City. But when Laryn spied a Mustang and Porshe passing through she thought something was up. Weird! I don't think that she will want to return for some reason which I haven't figured out yet. Maybe she will get a roommate or even a boyfriend from there.

Passing through Page we stopped at Glen Canyon Dam and viewed Lake Powell. A double rainbow viewed at the gas station sent us on our way to Flagstaff. The next two hours proved somewhat depressing as we drove through the Navajo Indian Nation. We did scope out the roadside jewelry stands for Mom's return trip. When we arrived in Flagstaff we found Dax and Jen's place easily with the pre-trip visit to Google Earth.

We visited the Grand Canyon and hiked 1 1/2 miles down which ended up being not very far in that huge hole in the ground. It was hot and steep but well worth the effort. The views were amazing. At "Ooh-Ah" point Laryn was attacked by a one-eyed squirrel that was obviously comfortable around humans. We also visited Meteor Crater and Walnut Canyon where the cliff dwellings exhibited the inhabitants understanding of the use of solar energy.

Flagstaff's 4th of July celebration paled somewhat to the TRAC fireworks show, but considering they hadn't had one for a number of years due to fire danger it was respectable. Before we left, we visited the Lowell Observatory where, among other finds, C. Tombaugh discovered the planet Pluto ( or dwarf planet if you subscribe to such cockamamy). A quick dash to Phoenix provided a feeling for the Valley of the Sun (100+) and some good deals at the factory outlet. Saguaro cactus dotted the landscape and denotes the arid climate.

As we journeyed north on the way home, Mom really "jewed" the local Navajo shop keeper for some nice earrings. He wanted $60 for them and she submarined him for $50. What a steal!

I hated to tell her that she probably could have got them for $30. She likes them.

Zion' Canyon definitely delivered! The massive stone formations and southwest red colors don't show well in the photos. Laryn's animal attraction worked again as we stopped to take a picture and she found herself within yards of a small herd of desert bighorn sheep. We finished our visit and headed north to the Bergeson's for the night. We stopped in Twin for a short visit and made it home by around 8 PM on Friday night. Another great road trip, and the Odyssey with 230,000 miles on it never wimpered.

Summer Time

School is out so I guess that it is officially summer. To add to that, Blaire has graduated from high school, the pumpkins are planted, the lawn mower blades are sharp, etc. We will be doing some early traveling this summer. Mom goes to girl's camp this week, and I am in Twin Falls helping at Grandpa and Grandma Webb's. From here we will travel to Utah and see the Bergeson's and Vard, and then down to Flagstaff, AZ. I am excited to see the Grand Canyon again and go to Meteor crater, something I have taught about in school for a few years.

I will finish my master's this Aug. after two years of challenges and successes. I have learned a lot and feel that it has been worth the effort but will be glad to be done and move on to some other things. This is just a start of some good stuff to come. We have found the camera and I am getting better at this computer stuff.

Groundbreaking

Recently we went to the groundbreaking of a new "stake center" in the Rd. 68 area of west Pasco. It is a really nice site in a newly developed area. One of our stake members had some influence on naming the streets, and the bordering street will be "Parley's street". The weather had been rainy and cold for the previous days, but it cleared and was a really pleasant evening. It will be completed in about a year and a half, and the stake will then be divided. The stake also created a Coyote Ridge branch in the prison in Connell. We now have about 18 units in the stake. One thing about the new branch is that Tyra and the other members of the young women's pres. will probably not have to visit there for ward conferences!

7 to 2

That's the score on the number of boys and girls of the Wells grandchildren with the arrival of Jhett Specht on May 2, 2009. Grandma Wells left us here to survive for two weeks. We did make it as you can tell. But there were some tough times. We really are glad that she can go and help with these little ones. I know the moms are happy to have her there.

Spring has finally arrived after faking us out a couple of times. I am not sure that our garden has figured it out yet. The fruit trees look good, but the ground crops are not getting much of a start. Blaire and Laryn participated in track and had a successful year in a new sport. They finished so close to going on to state. Blaire was one inch shore of qualifying in the javelin and Laryn finished 5th in the 800 meter run with the first 4 runners going on to state.

The hay is ready to cut for the first time this summer. Corn is popping up in the surrounding fields but will be absent in our garden as our neighbors are growing seed corn again. How I miss fresh corn on the cob. I am starting my last session and will finish my master's degree at the first of August if all goes well. Tyra is preparing for girl's camp in June and we are hopefully going to Utah and Arizona after that. However some unfortunate news may change those plans as Grandpa Webb has been diagnosed with cancer and will be needing some help. So our summer plans may be not so planned.

Hyrum is Here

When we left the Hales' house after the Saturday night session of our stake conference, we wondered if Tyra should stay there as Makala was looking ready to have a baby. We weren't home very long when the phone rang and James warned us that they may call again soon. Tyra decided to go without the call. Just a few minutes later Makala called and sounded a little distressed asking if mom could come. A couple hours later Hyrum was born in Richland, Wa.

We visited them today and all is well. He has lots of dark hair and looks pretty much like he belongs in the family. If he grows into his feet, he could be taller than his two older brothers. Vard knows how that works. Looks like it's macaroni and cheese, cold cereal, and no lights on when we come home for a few days. Hope to have a picture or two soon.

BYU Blue

We have always teased Kase about "livin' the dream". Well he is again as he continues to condition with the BYU football team. He was excited when the conditioning coach call him by name. That was the first coach to do that and it took about a month. Hopefully they will be calling his name a lot in the future. It's lots of fun to read "Wells" on his locker. Looks like he is no. 9 for now. I think the "3" is a locker number.

Lost the Camera

Well, it has been a long, cold winter here on Fairway Rd., but the Christmas holiday season was great. All the family was here from Nebraska to Washington to California. 23 of us cuddled up nice and cozy. We added one to our number as Haley was married to Severin Bergeson. So we had a wedding thrown in to keep us busy. The night of the reception in Moses Lake the temperature was 0 and the father of the bride was late with the wedding dress. Haley took it all in stride as she began the reception in sweats.

The worst part of the season was the loss of our digital camera. I am sure with the wedding, two receptions, and Christmas, it just got left somewhere. If anybody packed an extra one and took it home let us know. Of course, as a result there won't be any good pics on the blog for awhile. Good news came with the gender announcement of the Specht's new arrival in April. Makaley wasn't too happy to learn that she was going to have another brother. Can't imagine why. Vard had his share of bad luck playing football in the fall and had his knee injured. He underwent surgery and has been rehabbing every since. He used it to good use though as he was able to avoid most chores, etc. around the house while he was here.

More good news since the new year, Kase walked on and made the football team at BYU. The kid is still "livin' the dream". The downside is that he had to quit his job teaching language at the Mission Training Center which he loved. Dax and Jen will be graduating in April and Dax will be one of those engineers that I often refer to when I am working on something. Hopefully he has heard me enough that he will keep us do-it-yourselfers in mind when he is trying to "save space" on one of his designs.

Another Connell Eagle will be flying high in June with Blaire's graduation. She will continue the BYU-I tradition if Obama's stimulus package comes through or some other funding miracle happens. She has been doing a great job applying for scholarships and did more than Kase in her first week ( I think that would be 2).

Spring is just around the corner and it will be time to plant pumpkins again!