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.

Last Thursday, I drove over to my mom's house in Aberdeen, South Dakota. My sister, Becky, drove up from Kansas City and met us there. On Friday morning, we drove to Billings, Montana, to the wedding of my niece, Rachell Roberts. It was a fun trip! 6 of the 9 siblings in my family were there. It was fun to visit in the car, at the temple and at the reception in Rachell's home ward in Cowley, Wyoming. The long drive was totally worth it. It's always great to be with family. My mom and my siblings are a good influence on me. I always come back determined to be a better person.

Rachell and her new husband, Tim Enger.

My mom and sisters, from left to right: Becky Hendrickson, me, Susan Johnson, my mom and Kathleen Field.

The mother and father of the bride, my sister Miriam and her husband Shane Roberts.

Chalkfest

This past weekend was Chalkfest, an annual event in downtown Wausau. Janet and I went down on Saturday to see it. Our bishop, Mort McBain, is a very good artist and always does one. His is always a Madonna, because that's apparently what chalk artists traditonally did. If you click on the title of this post, you can see some of the art from 2005.

Land of the Midnight Sun

Wow! What a week we had in Alaska last week! I'll try to describe everything, but sometimes you just don't have words to explain. Anyway, here we go:

We arrived in Anchorage after a long, but otherwise unexceptional, flight. By the time we got our luggage and dealt with the car rental people and drove to Palmer, which is an hour north of Anchorage, it was 2 pm. Rene went fishing that evening; Janet and I stayed home and helped make lots of cookies for the reunion.

Sunday we got went to church at 1 pm. It's a good thing Sacrament meeting was so late, because our sleep schedules were messed up the whole time we were there. The sun sets about 11:30 and rises again about 3 am, but in between, it's still light--kind of like twilight. It's leads to staying up late. We ate dinner lots of night around 8 pm and after that, it just never seems like it's time to go to bed. Plus, it was a reunion, so we stayed up late talking and enjoying being together. As far as the church goes, there are lots of members in Alaska. In the Matanuska valley, where Bryan and Mary live, there is a stake. Palmer itself is only about 7000 people and Wasilla is about the same. But there are lots of homes out in the country. One-tenth of the population there is LDS. There are 3 wards in Palmer, 3 in Wasilla and 3 in between.

Monday, we drove up to the Matanuska glacier. It's about an hour drive. It was interesting and fun. We wanted to walk out onto the glacier, but that cost $15 apiece and we were too cheap to pay that.

Tuesday, Janet left to go with a bunch of cousins on a halibut charter out of Homer. She was pretty seasick, so she didn't enjoy it much, but I'll let her tell her own tale. Rene and I and Blair and Leslie drove down to Whittier and took a half-day glacier cruise. It was a little pricey and at first, I was wondering if we had been taken, but it turned out to be so awesome! We went 65 miles down Prince William Sound in a big catamaran and then came back, stopping to look at glaciers and wildlife all the way. We saw 26 named glaciers and a bunch of smaller ones. We got up close to a couple and were able to see one "calving". We also saw sea otters, seals and lots of bald eagles. We were hoping to see some whales, but didn't. It is hard to describe how beautiful it was. There we were in the ocean, with snow-covered mountains 360 degrees all around us. It was totally worth the money. Oh, for Joseph's benefit, we also saw a bunch of sea kayakers there. They have a plane or boat drop them off way out there, then kayak around and are picked up a week later, or whatever.

Wednesday, we mostly just puttered around Bryan and Mary's. Rene and Blair went fishing. In the afternoon, Leslie and I walked Sarah's pig. It was pretty funny. We were doing pretty well until we rounded a corner and the pigs saw their home and took off running. In case you're wondering why one has to walk a pig, it's to develop leaness, which is prized nowdays in pigs. Janet got home from the halibut charter in the evening.

On Thursday, Rene and I and Mary Ann and Jim took a bunch of the teenage counsins to see Thunderbird Falls and Eklutna Lake. The lake was more impressive than the falls. It is a glacier fed lake. It was pretty up there. That evening, the official reunion started with a picnic, fishing, canoeing, etc, at Matanuska Lake.

8 of the 11 siblings in Rene's family were there. One of their cousins and his family also lives in Wasilla, so they attended all the events, too.

Friday, we went to the Wasilla 4th of July parade. It was pretty much like every parade we ever went to in Mount Vernon. In the afternoon, we drove up Hatcher's Pass to Independence Mine, an abandoned gold mine. We had a private tour and then poked around on our own. It was really neat. It was established in 1939. It employed about 200 people and they all lived right there. They did not pan for gold, but actually mined it like you would coal. It was going strong until 1945, when it was deemed not essential to the war effort and closed. It was actually really cool. Some of the group also hiked up a mountain nearby to a pretty lake. On the way up there, we stopped at the prettiest river I've ever seen--the little Susitna. By the way, Hatcher's Pass is where the US ski team trains sometimes.

Saturday, we went to the Anchorage temple. It is one of the first 3 smaller temples built and is somewhat different than ours in either Columbus or St. Paul. The teens did baptisms, helped by their uncles, and then we did a sealing session. It was very nice. Afterwards, we all went out to dinner at the Golden Corral. After we got home, Rene went fishing with a group and Janet went on an ATV ride up to a glacier. She can tell you about that.

I'm not sure if I'd want to live in Alaska or not. And, of course, we only saw a little corner of it. But it was beautiful and the reunion was fun. It's going to take awhile to catch up on the sleep, though.

Our family, the girls at least, has a thing about shoes. For example, check http://franzenframe.blogspot.com/2008/04/shoe-fest.html on Emily's blog, or http://janscoresgoals.blogspot.com/2008/06/what.html on Janet's. One of the most fun parts of getting Joanna and Sarah ready for their missions was shoe shopping. Fortunately for us, missionary shoes are easy to find right now. I can't find it now, but in one of Joanna's letters, she said that she has more shoes with her on her mission (when she should be traveling light!) than the elders in her zone had all together. Rene even admits that he has more shoes than he ever thought he'd have. Even baby Afton, who doesn't even stand up yet, has a whole bunch of shoes. Of course, most of hers were gifts from people, including Grandma Allred, who sent her several pair.

Our upcoming trip to Alaska has precipitated a shoe crisis. How many pairs of shoes does one need for a trip to Alaska? We'll be there over a Sunday, so obviously, we need dress shoes. Plus, we'll need tennis shoes because there will be a lot of outdoor activities. But we'll also be doing some sightseeing, which in my mind, requires something a little dressier than my tennis shoes. And what about when we're kicking around at home? Flipflops, obviously. And Janet added another wrinkle today by asking if she would need footwear to swim in the lake. Good thing we have lots of shoes to choose from around here!