Rasmania 101: Wood Badge Training and all tickets completed

One of the highlight of the week for Roy, Caitlyn, and I, was our trip down to Utah County to see the new Provo Temple. We're glad we picked a weekday. Though it seemed to keep moving, we were in line for 40 minutes, while the tour lasted less than 30, but it was worth it. It's really a beautiful building and it's obvious that lots of love (and money) went into the renovations. The woodwork and the stained glass really stood out to me--also the beautiful artwork and furnishings. I'm sure it means a lot to the people of Utah County to have this building preserved. Your grandparents (Verl and Fern) used to get paid for caring for the Provo Tabernacle right after Grandpa graduated from college. He had a friend who did Janitorial work and he told Verl about this opportunity. It meant free rent in a little house that stood about where the Nu Skin building stands now. Rent would have been $38 each month which was probably equivalent to several hundred dollars now. He had a day job as an accountant, but the free rent allowed them to save up money for their first home. Grandpa said it was quite a lot of work as there was a large grassy area that they had to mow, plus the gardens-- and whenever there was an event such as regional meetings or high school graduations, etc. they had a lot of extra cleaning that had to be done. They were in charge of the upkeep for the whole facility. They did this for about three years.

Thursday was spent with Gunnar, Ollie and Finn, while Adrienne and AJ went Helicopter skiing with AJ's parents. I told Adrienne I was a little concerned about this activity--who would take care of Gunnar's broken leg if she had one, too? Thankfully, they both came home intact and had an awesome day!

Friday night we had a big "skate party" at the Rec center. I didn't realize what it was all about--though I really don't know why I was so clueless. I thought it was a program to watch and I wasn't worried about skating in it (and Caitlyn couldn't skate in it because of shin splints and tendonitis). Scott Hamilton was there for a cancer fundraiser and while there was a very short program, mostly it was just a big skate fest on the rink. I didn't even bring my skates (actually, I didn't think I had my skates, but I found out later they were in the car the whole time :).

Caitlyn, Scott Hamilton, myself and Roy

Also at the fundraiser--Miss Utah and Miss Teen Utah.
Roy looks like he's having a little too nice of a time.
He also likes to steal my thunder and send out pictures to all
the family before I write my newsletter for the week so
most of you have already seen this.

Saturday we had Glenn and Rosilene and their family to dinner. Patti didn't come because she was exhausted, and Emily had a prior commitment, but Jed and brought his kids and Taylor brought Ila. Ila had a great time--even though my own grandkids were overly tired and not very good about sharing with her. I told Glenn and Rosilene that they're special, we don't think to have our extended family that live in Utah over for dinner. I guess we need to put some of my other siblings on our guest list for future dinners.

Sunday night, Roy was awarded his Wood Badge Scouting Award. After the Wood Badge training, he had several "tickets" or goals that he had to finish to get the Wood Badge award.

With the "Fox patrol" Here he has his Wood Badge Scarf, etc.

One of the other members of Roy's Wood Badge"Fox Patrol" was sitting by us through the meeting. He was telling Roy about his wife and her recent hysterectomy. He was saying that it was difficult that she couldn't pick up their two year old, etc. Roy leaned over to me and said, "How many kids did we have when you had your hysterectomy?" This made me laugh so hard (and it had to be quietly) I nearly started crying. It reminded me of a stupid question I asked Christine at our siblings dinner in December.

Below are a couple of pictures of the progress on our home this past week:

Boy, this panoramic picture sure makes it look like a mansion :)

Today I learned how to scan my family history documents, save them as a pdf file, then scan them again and save them in another format so I can correct them, then save the corrected version as a word document. I had planned on sharing some more of Aunt Clara's letters, and I thought it would be easier if I could just cut and paste, thus the lesson in scanning--but I'm out of time and energy.

Here are a few pictures I got from family this week: