Merry Christmas to everyone. We love you!

We just wanted you to see this neighborhood example of the true Christmas spirit.  The parents of the children who built this snowman were badly burned in an airplane crash a few years ago.  They have had to learn all over again to love and admire their mother who, even after many surgeries, will always be disfigured.  These little girls built the snowman you see in these photos.  They built it in their neighbor's yard and placed it so that it could be seen from the neighbor's big dining room window--just where the couple always sit when they are eating.  These neighbors have been very ill for several years and are now pretty much home bound with round the hour care from a caretaking company.  To us, this is a wonderful example of children who are well-acquainted with receiving a great deal of attention and gifts of all sorts because of their parents' accident--now turning and giving what they could to others.  Merry Christmas family, we love you.

This is how I feel about meeting everyone in Alaska.

Family Reunion July 2013

Hi Everyone

The family reunion has finally been officially scheduled.  The dates are July 8 through July 13 in Talkeetna, Alaska.  Please mark your calendars and start planning your trip! We hope most of you can come earlier and stay longer, but these are the days we are hoping EVERYONE will be here.  We have tenative housing at the Talkeetna Roadhouse and A B&B on C. Check them out online. This is in addition to housing at our house, dry cabin, and town apartment. 

Jeff and Gay

Merry Christmas everyone.

At least for today, we have a white Christmas, so I went out and took some pictures of our house.
We hope all of you had fun plans for the holidays.
Today we are having an open house for our neighbors with wassail and cookies.  Dad loves to show off the nativity set.  Well the doorbell just rang, so I'll go.

We love you
Grandma and Grandpa

Great Artist's work appears in Kirtland, Ohio

Fiona and I had the pleasure of visiting an exhibit in Kirtland, Ohio today, on the site where Joseph Smith and the early members of the Mormon church lived.  For those who haven't visited us in Ohio [why not?!] you may not know that the LDS church has rebuilt the whole town to look like it did in Joseph Smith's day.  You can tour it and learn a lot about the early church and what life was like in the 19th century.

Every Christmas, the Visitor's Center gathers nativity scenes from people who donate them for an exhibit.    Here is Fiona standing outside the "Little Red Schoolhouse," a replica of the building that served as both a schoolhouse, courthouse, and a church meeting house.

We went into the schoolhouse and saw many nativity scenes, but we found one that we thought was especially wonderful, handcrafted and imported from Oak Lane:

From the schoolhouse, we went into the main Visitor's Center, where we found many more nativity scenes (lotsa olive wood from the Holy Land, lotsa Hallmark camels with big baby eyes...).  I saw one that I thought was especially interesting.  My cell phone doesn't do it justice, but it is from Liberia.  The sign says it is made from bullet casings that were collected by the artist after the Liberian Civil War that was fought from 1999-2003.  It made me sad to think of someone who had probably suffered through horrible violence going out to collect casings, but hopeful to think that they were put so such a peaceful purpose.

We had special tour guides all through our visit to the exhibit -- two women who are good friends of Fiona's.  One, Sister Wygant, lives on Cedar Lane, right behind Grandma and Grandpa and grew up playing in The Cousins (I guess permission is given to just about anyone these days...).

It was fun to be all the way out here in Ohio and have things to remind us of our family that we love so much back in Utah.  

This is my (intentionally) cheesy Christmas card that I made. Featuring my cat, Marcel Duchamp! 

I'm presenting at a symposium!

If you are around Provo on Wednesday, you are invited to come! The whole thing will end around 8:30, and I'm not sure if there will be breaks where you could sneak out after me, but probably. Now I need to get back to writing it! Wish me luck!