News of the Week

Another week has passed in our lives. It has been a wet week—lots of rain every day. The brown places in the lawn have lots of happy blades pushing up again. The week began with us as a big family group. Philip and Camille with Jonathan and Andrew spent the night with us on Monday and Tuesday we took them to the airport. That was a sad moment. We have loved having them with us at our house and also near and coming to dinner frequently. And we just adored the grandchildren. We are already looking forward to having them come and be with us in January and February. We will get them for about three weeks and the DeGoyler's will get them for about the same. They will be near in the not too distant future. And that it is a happy thought. I am already starting to think about Christmas presents and changing the arrangements in the basement to make it work better for them. They are always on my mind. This past weekend we were supposed to go on a Back Country Horseman activity. It was an overnight camping and riding event. We were all going to Settlement Canyon near Tooele where we were pitching tents and some people in their living quarters in their horse trailers. They were going to have a campfire in the evening and members were invited to come prepared to share cowboy poetry or songs—bring their instruments and such. It was going to be a nice time. I was going to go with Paul for the evening events and camp with him and then come home in the morning and he was going to go for the ride which was the next day. I was going to go in a separate car so I could leave without any trouble. But the event was cancelled due to inclement weather. And it was inclement. It rained like crazy on Friday and then cleared a little in the morning on Saturday—but was raining on Saturday afternoon. As it turned out—even if the weather hadn't been so bad, Paul and I wouldn't have gone anyway. I had the flu on Thursday and Friday and Paul wasn't feeling that great either—though not sick in the same way as me. I came home from work on Thursday, feeling poorly, took a hot bath and went to bed and slept all evening and all night. I felt somewhat better in the morning and went to work, but still wasn't in top form on Friday. Friday evening, because I felt like going to bed, but not like sleeping, I needed an “escape book” to read as I was convalescing and I settled on Edenbrooke—a book that I bought at Deseret Book for Grandma Kern’s birthday more than a year ago and which Erika had borrowed from a friend to read when she was at Lake Powell last summer. It was still here at the house so I read it and I knew it wasn't going to be something that would be difficult or have anything too unpleasant in it and that it would have a happy ending. I also knew that I would be able to finish it over the weekend. And so I started it on Friday night and finished it on Sunday. It was a fun, pleasant read and compared to a lot of the heavier things I have been reading lately, it was a bright breezy book. Just right for getting over a sickness. Grandma had read and enjoyed it and had encouraged me to read it, so I now I have scratched that off my list. On Saturday Paul suggested that we take a drive to Petersboro and see how the rain had affected our pasture there and if all of his grass seed had sprouted in the extra moisture. He offered me a movie in Logan as well, but we decided to go to the Logan Temple instead. I had seen the new temple film at the Jordan River Temple a couple of weeks ago when I went to the temple with an old friend, but Paul hadn't seen the new film yet. And it had been a very long time since we had visited the Logan Temple. I tried to think back and the last time that I remembered going was when Jimmy Kern married his first wife—we attended a session with the Demar and Doris Kern family on that occasion. Anyway it was a long time ago. Every temple has its own interesting features and look and things that make it memorable and unique. Paul and I were happy to have the experience of another temple—even if both of us had been there before, it seemed kind of like new because it had been so long. We never attended a session there before the renovations so it would have looked the same way it looks now back then, but neither of us remembered anything about it from 30 or so years earlier so it was as if seeing it for the first time. The next time that we go up to see the property we will go to a session in the Brigham City Temple. We haven’t been in that temple yet. And I have saved the best news for last. Peter called us on Sunday evening to announce that the results from the Bar Exam had been posted and that he passed. We are so happy for him and proud of him. This was wonderful news. Of course, it was a great relief for Peter, too. All the studying that he did this summer, the many hours he spent reading paid off for him. He is now a member of the Utah Bar. There will be a swearing in ceremony in October and we will be happy for that occasion, too. So our congratulations go out to him and to Kortney for the efforts getting him to this point.