1. I went for a hike this morning. Two hours and 34 minutes. The weather is perfect (finally), and it felt great. Except at about the 2 hour mark, I decided to hike one more loop around the next set of hills. That extra 34 minutes just about did me in, especially since I forgot that it ended with a nice steep climb over the last ridge and back down into the parking lot. My legs were shaking by the time I climbed into the car.
2. I taught a lesson in seminary this morning that had an emphasis on "pondering". We talked about what that meant in our lives -- meditating, thinking, finding time to slow and quiet your life down and pondering on things of spiritual importance. We especially talked about remembering to turn off electronics and phones and stepping away from the computer to occasionally create that quiet time in their lives. Then I excused the kids at the end of the hour, changed my clothes, headed for the desert trails, turned on my MP3 and listened to music at pretty high volume for 2 1/2 hours. Surprisingly, that made me feel mentally refreshed. But I think that should worry me that I can't even take my own advice.
3. I have an odd collection of music on my MP3, including but not limited to: Village People, Fall Out Boy, Shiny Toy Guns, and the musical genius that is the 1968 classic music of the Monkees.
4. I just now got a disturbing text from Roxanne "There was just a suicide in my building at school and we all got evacuated". What heartbreak and sadness for a family today. I'm feeling upset and I don't even know anything more about it.
5. I went to my High School Reunion last month. A completely new high school has been built in recent years and along with getting to tour the new facilities, we were also able to walk through the old main school building. I wish I had taken a picture of the building. It is a 3 story concrete and brick old-style school. If it had been Phoenix, the public probably wouldn't have been allowed to walk through it without a hard had on. It has been abandoned, unable to be sold or renovated and is in extreme disrepair. But it was kind of cool to poke around with my old classmates and remember where we used to take Geometry and World History. A lot of the classrooms were filled with misc. storage and debris. There were snow blowers and filing cabinets in the little kitchenettes of the Home Ec room. I still remember sitting in on the mystical microwave demonstration of 1976. How you could cook something and take it out of an oven with your bare hands and not get burned - absolute magic!
6. Somehow, it is always fun to be back in Winslow. I lived there from age 7 until age 17. Dave was very patient while we drove around town as I was strolling down memory lane. For some reason it is important to tell him where I used to ride my Sting Ray bicycle, and where we played arcade games, and to go have lunch at the old Root Beer Stand. The house we grew up in it still beautiful. I loved that house. I wish I could share those memories with our kids. They would have loved that house and that yard too. My parents moved from Winslow before our kids were even born. They live in the beautiful community of Heber and we love to visit there, but it's not the same as taking your kids back to your home town. There is a little bit of sadness about that for me.
7. We got to hang out with our friends Terri and Blake. They are the kind of people we can be separated from for months, then sit down and start up conversations as if we hadn't been apart for a day. I love them. They are a gorgeous couple and have 4 very handsome kids too. Their "baby" is almost out of high school. I can't believe we're all getting that old.
8. We went to the homecoming football game while we were in Winslow. I was glad we were sitting by Terri. She was able to point out everyone that I should have been able to remember, but couldn't. She fed me everyone's names before they walked by. A perfect system. The evening was all the fun and enthusiasm that a solid small town sports program brings to a community. I wish our inner city schools in our neighborhoods here would get the vision of what successful extra curricular programs could do for the kids, the school and the community.
9. I have a friend that is pretty darn cool. Her family is cool, and her house is cool. My level of coolness goes up whenever I am in her house. Her house is up for a vote on a cool and popular design site. Go to
this site , there is a quick and painless registration, then vote for Lezlee! (you've got to vote for her
today!)
10. I don't have 10 things on my mind today, but it seemed silly to end on #9.
We also enjoyed the decorations all over this house. Perfect centerpiece, amazing Christmas village (hand-made, not purchased!) and a Christmas tree in the fish bowl.
Our book club is coming up on it's 22nd anniversary in February (although I've only been attending about 17 years). Suzanne was one of the original members and was late arriving this week. Suzanne, it's just not the same without you. I think if I ran 30 minutes late, the event would proceed as normal, but without you . . . well, it was a little weird. You are our glue.
Besides Dusty coming home, Kelsie is leaving. She is heading to the Florida Tallahassee Mission. She gave an incredible talk in church a couple weeks ago and came to be with Brady today and then their family was heading to Utah this afternoon. She and Brady will overlap their time in the MTC by a week or so. Brady has instructions to keep an eye out for her. She should be easy to find. Although she is short, I think her cool bright colors will be easy to spot in a sea of dark suits. Kelsie is going to be an awesome missionary. 
We had a great sacrament meeting today. Another young man in our ward just came home from his mission in Baltimore a couple of days ago. Daniel grew up with Brady and went through scouting with him. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of him today. Anyway Daniel and Brady were the speakers in our meeting today and both did an excellent job. Another young man in our ward, Codi, is also leaving for Anchorage Alaska later in January. Lots of missionaries right now. 
Here are 11 of the 35 cousins. Ben, Trevor, Shaw, Niels, Brady, Michael, Kelsie, Rachel, Roni, Roxanne and Melanie.
There was a strange phenomenon that happened right after this picture was taken. The Whipple cousins bring a certain energy level with them everywhere they go. If you've ever been around this family, you can verify this fact. The level of talking and laughing and general conversation is usually a higher volume than normal and funnier than you can imagine. When they said their goodbyes after this picture was snapped, they walked out into the parking lot and the rest of us looked around as if the party had just ended and we had no option than to quietly disperse and go our separate ways. 
I took on some hosting duties for an evening out at the temple lights, celebrated our neice's missionary farewell, went to the temple with Dave and Brady, cheered Dave on in the Electric Light Parade, put up our tree, and sent out a few Christmas cards. All in all, it has been a good month, but it was mostly full of busy, but boring tasks - cleaning closets, collection calls, sorting tax receipts etc. I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks still being full of busy-ness, but hopefully less boring.
A second pumpkin weighed 77 pounds. Then before he started dismantling the plant, we measured one of the plant stems - 45 feet long. It was massive and was winding all over our front yard. I was seriously worried it would start creeping in our front door.
Then a wee bit of snow came blowing in before they started home:
I got a text message from Joe's wife, Madeline, a few days after they got back :
Dave thought he would be funny and put a very ripe and bright orange pumpkin out in the vines in the yard. Brady immediately called the bluff . . . "Who put the fake pumpkin in my patch??" He is a good little pumpkin shepherd. He knows his "sheep".
We went to the same places and pointed our cameras at the same points of interest. If you ever want to stay in the most beautiful bed and breakfast and be treated better than you've ever been treated and fed better than you've ever been fed, read Suzanne's post about the 
We walked about 20 steps into the woods and there were 3 options to take. There was the north/south option and there was a path going west, but it was gated. The guide book we referenced said the trail headed in a southern direction and would lead us to a great swimming hole at a little over 2 miles down the trail. Obviously we weren't planning to swim in October, but that would be our turning around point. So we headed south down a very wide and smooth and well maintained path. Suzanne even mentioned how nice it was that the trail was so wide because we could walk side by side instead of one ahead of the other like we normally hike on most trails. Isn't it gorgeous?
So we followed the path off the end of the bridge and along the river. Beautiful trees, beautiful river, beautiful trail, beautiful weather, beautiful everything. We hiked down the trail for over an hour and then it merged onto a service road which led into a hunting camp area, which lead to a dead end. What the heck?? Did we miss a turn??? It still had been a nice hike so we followed the trail back to the bridge and asked the next hiker we saw where the trail went. He showed us that the trail took a sharp right turn at the end of the bridge and up over the nearby hill. Then he said "I don't mean to be demeaning to you or anything, but the trail is marked quite clearly with these blazing marks in the trees." (Well, . . . . alrighty then.) We look up and there they are, clear white marks in the trees. Who would have thought? We had spent a year hiking in the desert where you get your clues from the ground. No trees for miles around. Who would have thought to look up in the trees?
She was hiking the entire 2025 mile trail! She told us she was covering about 9 to 15 miles a day. It was amazing visiting with her. We told her we needed to post our pictures side by side with hers - with our $19.99 discount tennis shoes, and our 16 oz. bottles of water.