The other day  when we had a song practice over at the church,  I walked into the Relief Society room and saw the oddest thing.  The clock in there was going super fast and the hands were just going around and around.  As soon as I saw it I thought, wow that is what my life feels like right now.  It seems like the days of the week just fly by and the weekend is here again!

Oh well...life is good and I have much to be thankful for...like this day fishing with my guys.

 

I don't see nearly enough of these...gotta start getting up earlier!  Then maybe I would get something done!

We decided to go to Deer Creek ( because it's not frozen?)  I had never been there before  and KC and Kelley were not too stoked about it. I was like why?  It's so close and we were catching fish like crazy...they were little, but they were fish!

OK, one problem...we forgot to buy bait...we were hoping there would be some stinky cheese on the boat, but they had taken it all off to go ice fishing and what was left was pretty dried up.  So we had to get creative...I was trying the cheese off my sandwhich!   Lucky for us, the fish were biting on these wooly bugger things that we had several of!   We fished from about 8:30 till noon.  Everything was lovely and calm.  Then all of the sudden, the wind started blowing...hard!  We were going to try  fishing in one other spot, but thought we'd be doing good to get the boat off the lake....(come to find out... that was why they didn't care for Deer Creek).

Update on the stink...

We found it!  at least I think we did...
We were looking around out in the garage to see if there was anything that could be seeping through the wall by the fridge.  Well the other day, Will had come over to look at the car ( which is running terribly) and he had this can of spray stuff that he had used to try to find leaks in the hoses.  It smelled really strong when he used it, but not rotten smelling...just like chemicals. 
Kelley saw the can sitting there on top of the freezer and it was kind of oozing some liquid out of the top.  He smelled it and it was pretty strong. ( it didn't smell like the smell in the house, but we thought we better get rid of it anyway)  So he threw it in the garbage.
Later that night when we got home from playing racquetball, it was much less stinky!  And the next morning...smell was gone! 
Weird huh.

Stink

Soooooooo we have a smell. A smell in the kitchen.  It started a few days ago when I would open the fridge...it was like sour milk or something rotten.
I immediately cleaned out the fridge.  Threw away anything that even had potential to someday smell.  Wiped down all the shelves with powerful cleansers.  Even as I finished cleaning, I knew the smell was still there.  So I open two boxes of soda and put them in the fridge.  Still stinky.
Except now the smell was not contained in the fridge...it was reeking in the whole kitchen.  When you would walk in the door, it would about knock you over. But it was mostly stinky when I opened the fridge. 
So I went through everything that was left in the fridge again and threw out some perfectly good food just because I didn't know what else to do.
While I was in Logan, Kelley pulled the fridge out to see if there was anything dead behind it.  nope...clean as a whistle.
So now we started have thoughts of something crawling under the house and dying.  It happens.  Do you remember orange kitty?  I still throw up a little when I think of Kelley fishing him out from under the pantry room floor ( via the opening in the wall of the garage).  This was after an exhausting search for a terrible stink back in that area.  We even took up the tile in the back bathroom to see if something had climbed down the heater vent and died.  We also had the air duct people come out and clean all of our pipes.  They found lots of other things that had fallen down the heat vent, but nothing stinky.
 Kelley was working out of town at the time, so I was about at my wits end.  When he came home, he went right out in the garage,  got a flashlight and looked in the crawl space under the  back room.  There in the back corner was orange kitty.  (very dead and decomposed)
Kelley gets his face mask on ( towel tied around head...he's very sensitive to bad smells....used to do this when changing diapers) gets a long pole and drags poor orange kitty out.  Problem solved.
Then there was the rat incident.  Oh it was so much more than an incident though!  This time the rotting smell was coming from the basement.  We searched every inch of the two rooms.  Nothing!  So then we checked the ceiling panels...the ones we could get at anyway.  Nothing!  Man we were getting desperate!  You couldn't even stand to go downstairs it was so stinky and it was wafting into the upstairs now too.  This was a few days before thanksgiving and we were planning to have all the family here so drastic measures needed to be taken.  Kelley got his sledge hammer and started bashing the walls in...I think he went a little bit crazy there for a while.  He had to make a hole in the lower part of the wall and the upper part because there was a board going around the middle that something could be laying there dead on.  Oh man, it was awful!  We had holes around in all the walls and still didn't find anything!  We had noticed though that when the furnace came on, the smell was worse, so we started tracing where the pipes went.  Up in the ceiling again, Kelley followed a pipe to the last piece of ceiling board we hadn't looked under.  It was hard to get at and I think Kelley thought he had checked well enough around that area.  So he takes the ceiling piece out and there back in a little empty space, was a big fat rat.  Sooooooo stinky!  He disposed of the rat, but now we were left with a basement that looked like it had been bombed. The rat definitely won that one. We just stood there looking at the mess and laughed...otherwise I think I would have cried.
So as we were trying to locate this latest stink, these horrible memories start creeping in. I really don't know where else to look, so I'm hoping what ever it is will just finish decomposing and go away.  ( It seems slightly less stinky today...or maybe I'm just wishing it to be)  I'll keep you posted. 

We Celebrated Teina's birthday this weekend when we got together.

Gosh I'm grateful for her and the wonderful sister she is!  I so enjoy every time we get together and are able to just talk about  anything and everything as we make the trek up to mums.

I really don't want this adventure to end.... then I know we won't see each other nearly as much.

I guess we can only drag it out so long though...we told Boyd we would have all of the inside  of the house cleaned out by April 1!  Ha! At the rate we've been going, it looks like July 1 would be a better date! 

We really tried this week to make some decisions about all the furniture, appliances and things left in the house.  We had all written down 4 things we would like to have and we are trying to work it out so each of us gets one of our favorite things.  There were a few things that we all wanted, but I know we will be able to work it out.

 We went to look in the out buildings to see just what was left in them.  This little "dream house" is so full of memories...it sure tugged at my heart when we went in there.   thinking about the old days...sleeping under the mosquito net daddy rigged up so we wouldn't get eaten alive, having friends sleep over, giggling till all hours, then waking up to the rooster crowing and tearing across the dewy lawn to the east room door to come in the house for breakfast...usually mums yummy pancakes.
I love that our kids got to spend some time and make memories of happy times in the dream house too!

The old bull lamp...I think Bruce gave that to mum and daddy.

While we were sitting there talking, 4 deer just came wandering through the yard.  There is really no reason for them to be there anymore...they should be back in the mountains.  I'm sure they think this place is their own now though.  They have eaten all the bushes and trees and any little sprouts of daffodils or crocus that have come up in the rock garden....plus they have pooped everywhere. 

Not really that cute anymore.

We decided to clean out mums china cabinet. That was fun!  So many treasures!

Some of these dishes were from my grandmas....on both sides.  Mum had these labeled as Lena's wedding dishes.  How special is that?

There were a couple fancy cups that said "Present" on them.  I'd like to know what that meant.

I got this one...so pretty!

Then we decided to tackle the bottled fruit and beans in the hall cupboard. There was a lot of grape juice ( probably nice and fermented by now) and jam and beans. 

We thought it would probably kill the garbage disposal to put the grapes down it, so we took them out and dumped them in the garden. Some of the beans were from 2004...I thought they would probably be safe???  Gosh I miss mums beans!

 Teina rinsed out all the empty bottles so we each had a bunch to take home.

Then we got really brave and went down the basement.  We looked around a bit and decided that getting all the old fruit from down there was going to be a full day project.  So we brought a bunch of the empty bottles ( old peanut butter jars, cheese whiz jars, baby food bottles) upstairs and dumped them in the recycle can.

While we were down there, we noticed one of the windows was completely out.  I don't know how that would have happened, or why anyone would take it out.  We went outside and tried to put it back in place but it's going to take some man work.

The wall by the stairs had kind of fallen off too...plastery stuff.  The place is looking pretty rough.

I don't know what's going to happen when the guy come this week to do a new appraisal.

This is surely the ugliest time of year to see the yard...the rock garden didn't get cleaned out last fall so it's full of dead stuff...there's branches that have broken off from the wind on the lawn, the deer have eaten all the bushes and trees so there is just the stump there.  Ahhhh makes me sad to see it like this.

We went out in the garage just to see what was left out there...hmmmm there's still a bunch of things we need to take home or to the DI or to the dump.  I thought I'd take a peek up in the attic.  I could see all these boxes way back in there so I crawled in to see what was in them.  Hides.  Lots of hides. I don't know if people tan hides anymore, but if they do....we have a lot of hides.  Maybe I'll put it on KSL just to see.  I found a couple other cool things...daddy's old temple suitcase, a few magazine racks and the old bamboo blinds that used to hang on the back porch.

 You can't really see this but it's a beehive made out of a big rope.  I remember it distinctly from when mum served in the MIA. ( a good portion of my growing up years...)  She was the beehive leader.  It was spray painted gold and had cute little bees on it. Very cool.

 There is a ton of boards and cupboard doors drawers and old parts of furniture still up there.  It's fun to look through this old stuff that's been stashed away for so many years.  A few things really sparked the memories....the old Santa suit that  Nephi Bott used to dress up in  and come to grandma Braeggers

Mum and daddy ended up with a lot of stuff from their older relatives (their parents, aunts, uncles) ...I guess they just became the keepers of stuff when these older ones started dying off.  There is a ton of genealogy books, family and personal histories, important papers like birth and death certificates, ordination certificates, awards, patriaracle blessings and pictures there at their house.  I guess now, they will move to one of our houses.

We all went home with loads of stuff to go through....we're just passing everything around so we can copy what we want.  I spent a few hours this morning reading letters and papers daddy had saved from his mission and from the war.  There was a letter that mum had written to him when he was in Tahitee.  I wonder if she had any idea at the time how things would turn out with him.   I'm sure grateful that they did!  I know mum went through some really sad times when she was married to Reed.  Can you imagine having your husband come home and tell you he wants to be a polygamist?   I can't begin to.  But to hear her tell the story... as dark and sad as that time was for her, she just kept going...she was able to get a temple divorce from him moved back home with her mom and dad. After a few years, daddy came home from the war and they started dating and were married.

She didn't talk about it very much, but I remember one time we were talking about some hard things my girls were going through, and she said she had been through some pretty hard times too. She said she learned from this experience with Reed, that as unhappy and hopeless as you may feel, if you just keep your faith and keep trying, things will get better...happiness is just around the corner waiting for you! 

Stuff that makes me happy...

The other day as I was driving home from racquetball, I all the sudden got the thought that I should call Kelley's dad and see if he needed a ride to the Temple. He is a veil worker every Wednesday afternoon.   He said he had just talked himself out of going because he is too nervous about driving clear out there anymore.

So thankful for the prompting...stayed and did some initiatory work.  What a nice day.

KC and I have been trying to learn how to play the guitar.  This guitar is a beauty that Kelley bought me before we got married.  I had tried a few times before to learn, but gave up cause it hurt my fingers!  Lame.

So I dug out an old guitar book (that had been thoroughly chewed by peaty, our old ( dead...yeah, I don't want to talk about it...) lovebird)  from my music files and we started on page one.

We started out learning the notes on the strings....now we are moving into some chords.

The first few days my fingers were pretty sore...(numb),  (fingers sore?  fine!  now you've pulled landscaping duty!) but they are toughening up.

KC has a much better memory than me and can just look at the music and play the songs.  I need to keep thumbing back through the pages to remember what the notes are.  I'm getting a little better with practice though.  Gosh the ukulele is a lot easier....I don't know what the names of the cords are that I'm playing on it, but it's never mattered...you can just feel what you need to play. 

I hope some day I can do that on the guitar too! 

This just goes without saying....

Sunday afternoon, Candice came over and we did some stitchery together.  Can't tell you how happy it makes me that she has the desire to learn how to embroider.  She did a great job!  Nice even stitches!

Oh, another cool thing....last night we to a caucus meeting...my first official... ( I vaguely remember going to one about 20 years ago over at Roths)

It was really interesting.  We all met in the auditorium at Kearns Jr. high.  There was a lot of people there...most every chair filled and people in the door ways.

I liked that we started the meeting with prayer and the pledge of allegiance.  Then Jim Dunnagan read this motto for republicans.  It was super long, but very cool as he told all the things we stand for and believe in.

Then they divided us into our precincts and we all went into different rooms.  Dave D. was our precinct chairman and did a great job.  He's a good guy...had bad problems at work and had to go back after meeting was over to fix, but he was there, doing his duty. 

I didn't really know what went on at these meetings, so it was interesting to be a part of it.

We elected a new chairman, vice chairman and  secretary/treasurer.  I thought it was cool how this one young guy nominated himself.  He was just excited about the whole process and was willing to serve! 

I think he got to be the vice-chairman.  You gotta love anybody who is willing to go to these meetings to represent!

Then we took nominations for the county and state delegates.  This was  more serious, because they were going to be representing our prescient in matters such as mayor, senators, congressmen...that sort of thing.  We nominated a lot of different people...many turned the nomination down...for different reasons.

All the different nominees got up there and told a little about their self and what they wanted to see happen with the upcoming elections.  Several were really impressive and stood up for things that were important to me. We voted and came out with one winner,( but we needed two delegates for State)  (not enough votes (30) for any of the others to qualify)  so we voted again.  Still not enough votes.  So this last time, they eliminated all but the two highest delegates and we voted again.  This time Paul Roth came out on top.  I love that guy!    He will do a great job! 

   

Had a pretty cool experience at the temple yesterday.  Colleen had called a few days ago  and asked if we could fill in for Mendenhalls cause it was our turn to rotate out.  I told her that Stacey had already asked us to fill in for her and Rick cause he was on call. I told her I would see if KC wanted to come...he could fill in as a witness anyway.  KC said he would like to do that, so he went with us. 
We were the first ones there, so we had some time to chat with Brother Larsen, our sealer ( and pretty much the nicest man I've ever known).  He was asking KC about his mission and saying something about his own mission.  KC asked him where he had served and he said Tahiti!   He had been there as a missionary in 1950, then gone back two more times and served as  mission president and  area rep. 
The  Buhlers got there about this time and he told us all about a special experience he had there..  He said when he was serving as a missionary there, a good friend  who he served with had been working on constructing a building there and was about 20 feet up on some scaffolding when he lost his balance and fell off.  He was falling to the ground, when all the sudden he feels himself being lifted up and sat back on the scaffolding.  It was a very sacred experience for him and he only shared it with a few people...including our sealer.  Many years later, when Brother Larsen had gone back to serve as a mission president, this same man was there with him.  Brother Larsen felt inspired to go back to this same area where this incident had happened  many years before.  While they were there, they were approached by a man who said " aren't you Brother  Peterson?  The man with Brother Larsen said "yes...how do you know me?"  This man said he had been a young boy, about 10, when he had seen this man fall off the scaffolding, then be lifted back to safety by unseen hands.  He said he had never forgot it.
We got to talking about daddy and when he had been there. I told them about daddy's journals that were written in Tahitian.  Brother Larsen said he had a good friend who had served his mission in Tahiti as well who was trying to put together a history of the missionary work there.  He said he was having a hard time finding any information  from the time just before the war broke out....which was exactly when daddy was there.  I told him we would he happy to share these journals and pictures we have with his friend and would be glad if they could help.  He was pretty excited and so was I!  I told him we have been wanting to translate them but didn't know where to go to find someone who could help us.
After we were done with the sealing session, he told us a few more experiences about his mission there and they were so similar to things I remember daddy telling us.  It was pretty neat...coincidence that KC had come with us and asked Brother Larsen about his mission?  I don't think so.
Another very special thing was being able to do these sealings with KC.  When I was looking through some of mums papers and things that I brought home, I came across a paper she had filled out that was like a personal history  questionnaire.  One of the questions was  "What was your very best day?"  She answered " The day I was able to be with all my daughters in the temple."  She said the only thing that could have been better would be if Bruce could have been there too. 
I agree with her 100 percent...there isn't anything better than to get to be with your kids in the temple. 

Was sitting down to blog a bit, but decided to check my email first.  Was shocked and saddened to hear of Cheryl's grandson passing away today.  Stacey had been following their family's blog (critterscancer@blogspot.com) and saw today that he had died.  I so appreciate her letting all the bunko ladies know. We are a tight knit bunch and have seen each other through the ups and downs and joys and sadness of our lives for the past...hmmmmm 23 years?  This has got to be one of the most heart breaking things yet.  I can't even begin to imagine watching someone I love as much as I do Sam or Olivia go through what this little guy has endured for the past year.  Just last month at bunko, Cheyrl was telling us that they were getting ready for a bone marrow transplant...with the bone marrow coming from his new baby sister.  They were so happy that she had been a match for him and were full of hope for his future.   He had been through so much chemo therapy already though, that his little heart had been damaged too much to go on. My heart is aching for their family tonight.  Sending love and prayers...