Holiday Recap

Everyone loves the Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert and this year was no exception. It was more tender because it's Karl's last one, and the last time we will be guaranteed tickets! The guest stars were the Sesame Street Muppets: Big Bird, Elmo, Bert & Ernie, Cookie Monster and the Count, to name a few. It was different than the usual concerts, one part being that children age 5 and older were invited to come. This photo is from the "mini" concert they do after the Music and the Spoken Word on Sunday. At the end they invited all the muppeteers on stage and the choir & orchestra sang "God be with you 'til we meet again". These guests had tears streaming down their faces. It happens over and over again, the Spirit touches these guests and they feel something and in some way they are changed. Great Grandma Betty with Rex and Dane at the annual "Grandma Tobler Christmas Dinner". We held it in the activity room at her apartments. It was a great location, and we had the usual white elephant exchange. A few weeks before Christmas we posed for a casual family photo. This is us. Rob and Jill made a customized village shop for our collection. They disassembled the original and inserted a bed with pillows and a foot protector, a sale sign and renamed it. Very clever. I made 5 (simple) quilts for the girls, I started work on them this summer, but despite my good intentions, I still ended up finishing (quilting and hemming) them all the week before Christmas. I think they like them, I was a little worried that they are too young to appreciate it. ...Time for a long winter's nap.

Europe!!

We have never been "abroad". Various countries in the Caribbean, yes, but across the ocean, no. It is even fun saying we were in Prague, Budapest and Paris! It was an advertising "rewards" trip for spending a bunch of money with our local CBS station doing ads for Mattress Warehouse. It was a blast. We learned a bunch of stuff about travel, we learned that jet lag is a thing, we saw cool stuff, old stuff, weird stuff and got to know some people. I was most concerned about eating Gluten Free, and I had a perfect experience, not one single problem. The Eifle tower was SOOOOO cold and windy at the top! In Budapest our group had a walking tour followed by a Pedi-cab tour. Our guide narrated the sites and we had earpieces so we could hear, there were 9-10 of these cabs in a row. It was so much fun! We spent about 3 1/2 hours at the Louvre, which only makes a dent in what you could see, but you get to a saturation point, where you have to stop, because your feet hurt, you've been fighting crowds and you find yourself shuffling along. So it was good to go, you need to spend part of several days there. We rented an audio tour and were so frustrated trying to figure it out, it was a Nintendo DS controller and we are not literate in that language!! We found ( I googled it before we left) a Gluten Free bakery in Paris and Wow! I had eclairs, and pastries that I have not had in more than a decade. I just wonder why we can't do that great stuff here???? The weather was great, it was Autumn, the temperature hovered in the 50's and 60's, never getting above 65. In Paris it was a little blustery, rained hard one evening, but the leaves were blowing down the street and it was kind of cozy and fun. In Budapest,there is a chilling and disturbing Holocost Memorial where Jews were lined up along the Danube river, told to step out of their shoes, then shot into the river. These are bronze shoes, tattered, all sizes.. so sad and horrible.

Necrotic Ring Spot

So there is this horrible, awful, ferocious, lawn fungus called necrotic Ringspot. We have been dealing with this monster for several years now. It is nearly impossible to treat and spreads like wildfire.

There are no professional lawn companies that will treat this, because there is almost no way to remove it even if you dig down and take away all the sod and re-sod.  Last year we dug out all of the places of bad dead circles and replaced it with grass seed that is resistant to this disease, and those spots look okay but it sprung up all around again. So once again, we are treating it with a fungicide. I have also bought three big bags of seed to reseed over-the-top.

Hopefully the seeds will germinate and take root and we might have a decent looking lawn in the spring, but I'm pretty sure it will end up reseeding the entire lawn as malicious is this thing is.

Apparently Sandy, Utah is a hotbed for this stuff, and I would advise anyone against planting Kentucky bluegrass.

Cabin Fun!

We had a most awesome vacation in Island Park, Idaho. We rented a cabin on the lake/reservoir that had a private dock right outside the front door. 6 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms gave us plenty of room, the kids loved climbing up and down the bunk beds and lofts and secret hideouts. The weather was perfect, upper 70's in the day, 50's at night. Karl spent time working on a fussy Jet ski and had an issue with the boat battery, but still managed to have fun. He only fished for about 35 minutes, however. We spent a day in Yellowstone, it was only 30 minutes from the cabin door. Saw only 1 bison and some Elk. The geysers did not dissappoint the kids, who had never been. A picture of a buffalo.... the park rangers wouldn't let us stop...

Remodel

Our son bought a "fixer upper". They actually bought some property and it came with a house. A 1970's house that needs a lot of work. So they, (with a little help from family) have been removing paneling, fixtures, an indoor stone waterfall/taxidermy display, carpet and carpet tack strips, and "popcorn" ceiling. They will be replacing the shake shingle roof, all the windows in the home, all the flooring and all of the indoor fixtures. Eventually, one by one, they will remodel each of the 4 bathrooms and a couple of years down the road they will be gutting the kitchen. For now they will live with orange formica countertops and a brown sink, a royal blue master bathroom tub & sinks. He and his wife are exhausted and the amount of work has been overwhelming. They have a carpenter/contractor that has been awesome to work with, but they are doing a ton of sweat equity. Sweat being the key word because the doors and windows are open and the air conditioning is off. (Think July in the desert) In the next two weeks I think they will see progress that will make them glad they took it all on. Before light fixture: Flemish Amber - a popular color of glass in the '70's.... And After, with clear glass and new bulb. Below, they have removed brick, wall and replaced two skinny windows with one large one, (on both sides of the room). They have to move in in two weeks! The corral has to be built before Natalie's horse arrives in August!!