We returned home yesterday from our trip to take Janet out to BYU. It was a fun trip--a little long and hot, but fun. Here's the recap with pictures:

We left on Sunday after church and drove to my mom's in Aberdeen, SD. The next morning, we drove from Aberdeen to Mt. Rushmore, which is about a six hour drive. Western South Dakota isn't much to look at, but one thing we did enjoy seeing were the vast fields of sunflowers.

We broke up the trip with a stop at Wall Drug. It's so touristy that it's fun.

Then, on to the Black Hills. We took a little hike at Mt. Rushmore. Although we have been there before, it's still awesome.

We drove on to Casper, WY that night. The next day, we visited Martin's Cove, the Willy Rescue Site, Rock Creek Camp and the site at the Green River where Rene's ancestor died. Once more we were awed by the strength and courage of the pioneers, both those who came by wagon and the handcart companies. Driving across Wyoming causes you to reflect on what the thoughts of those early saints may have been. What a lot of faith and determination that trek took! Rene and Janet are sitting on a bench which commemorates the death of Joseph Oborn at the Green River Crossing.

After seeing more of Wyoming than you'd ever want, we made it to Kaysville that night. The next morning, we moved Janet into the dorms.

We had a long list of items to accomplish while in Utah and got all of them done. Rene and I were able to attend the Provo temple and enjoyed it. It had been about 27 years and after attending small temples for the past 9 years, it was a different experience.

We missed Janet on the drive home. It was a much quicker trip. We drove 16 hours the first day from Provo to Ames, Iowa. The next day, we drove 6 hours home with two interruptions. We stopped in Minneapolis to give peaches to Mary Ann and then we stopped at an Amish store about an hour from home.

One other item....the cheapest gas? Aberdeen, SD, at $3.45. Who would have imagined that?

And one last picture....

Bob(s) the Builder(s)

I mentioned in an earlier post that people here in Wisconsin take their wood seriously. The big excitement at our house recently is the shed that Rene is building to store his big woodpile in. He has consulted with his brother Paul on the design, made an exciting trip to Menard's to order materials and cleared the site. (There was a little, old, beat up aluminum shed there before.) The materials came on Thursday and he was so excited that he started right in.

Last night, Preston and Emily came over for dinner and stayed so that Preston could help with the building project. Here are some pictures of them hard at work. It's been a pretty amazing male bonding project.

And what did the women do while they were hard at work? Fixed dinner, cleaned up after dinner, watched the Olympics, scrapbooked, read....whatever. Somehow, the building project is just not as exciting to us.

On Monday night for Family Home Evening, we made spudnuts. We used to make them once a year around the 24th of July because that's what Rene and I were doing 30 (!!!) years ago when we got engaged. We kind of got away from that, but someone suggested it and we thought it would be fun. We invited a couple of friends over and had a great time. The spudnuts were yummy! And it was easier than it used to be to cook them because Rene got a deep-fryer for his birthday. Good thing we only make them once a year or so.

Ingredients:

2 cups milk

½ cup sugar

½ cup shortening

2 teaspoon salt

1 package yeast

1 cup mashed potatoes

2 eggs

6 cups flour (approximately – dough should be sticky)

Preparation:

Scald milk with shortening in it; cool. Soften yeast in ¼ cup water. Mix all ingredients – adding 2 cups of the flour and the potatoes last.- to make a sticky dough. Add remaining flour until you have a soft dough that you can handle. Cover and let rise in a warm place for about an hour. Roll out dough, cut into doughnuts. Let rise again for about 30 min. Deep fry at 360 degrees until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Dip in sugar or glaze.