Birthday Post From Mom!!

What do you give a girl who has everything she could possibly want? David figured it out...flowers and a dinner that includes just about all my favorite foods: steak, French bread and pâté, shrimp cocktail, celeri remoulade (French celery root salad), asparagus.... and...AND, he drove all the way to SLC to get just the right things. Now that my dears is a perfect birthday. Add to that, I have received birthday calls from all my favorite people (YOU) and some very thoughtful birthday treats... well it has been a great day. Bill, you may make comments on all my birthday posts, Katy, I love, love, love the picture, and Anna, you know me and gift cards...look out Amazon. I know just how blessed I am (except for the age thing). I love you all.

My dream dinner

I'm the pumpkin in the orange sweater

Hugs to all of you,

Mom

P.S. We also saw Red tonight. We were very fun tonight.

D.

Two thumbs up: both of ours

Happy Birthday Kristina Dear

It's Kris's birthday today. It wouldn't be kosher to tell you how old she is, but it has been very few years since she was born in Portland in 1952 (oops). This is a favorite photo of her holding baby Emily.

I'm glad I met her in the kitchen of her parents home in Arizona (also just a few years ago) and that she liked me enough to date me and eventually marry me. From my point of view, it was a great decision.

I love you Kris, and hope you have many happy returns of the day.

Happy birthday!

OXO

D.

Late October 2010

The months race by and October will soon be a memory. The weather is cooler and the leaves in the valley have begun to turn; the trees will soon be bare. We have had several days of rain and it will be turning to snow on the benches tonight.

In anticipation of the first solid freeze, I have brought in the last of the cantaloupe. We have been eating them as fast as we can but we still have about 15 on the counter and in the fridge. Sadly, the tomatoes will be goners and there are still hundreds yet to ripen. Oh well. I also harvested most of the pumpkins in anticipation of Halloween and Thanksgiving.

Yesterday evening Jayson and Emily hosted the family dinner. Jayson made pasta with Italian sausage and asparagus. It was really good, and it is always fun to get together.

Today, Kris and I voted early. It was easy, with no lines or waiting. The only problem was that they have never recorded our new address in spite of filling out forms every ruddy time we vote. Perhaps this time will be the charm.

The leaves in the park are turning and Timp
had a dusting of snow

Even though the colors on the mountains are fading,
the rain makes the colors rich

The Ensigns hosted Sunday dinner

Delicious!

Lizzy entertained me with some serious twirls
that made the ruffles on her frock stand straight out

The pumpkins are in

In spite of the image on the stickers, we didn't have to
match our finger prints, we just showed a drivers license

After several days of valley rain, there is
serious snow on Mount Timpanogos

That's all for now.

OXO

D.

This and That

Some of you may remember that when we were rebuilding the house, the builder wanted to use exterior-grade MDF (medium-density fiberboard) for the body, bases, and capitals on the front-porch boxed columns. I was apprehensive about MDF, but was told the exterior grade would hold up very well. We took a sample piece to our Sparks apartment and soaked it in water for a couple of weeks and it did seem to be impervious to moisture, so we did it. Well, Mother Nature has her ways and the base of the northernmost column began to swell and split open. I caulked and repainted, but after 5 years it was a mess.

Rich Johnson has removed the bases, cut off a couple of inches from the bottoms of the columns so they won't wick moisture, and replaced the bases and moldings with solid vinyl, similar to the material Katy used to make frames. The project is finished and looks great. Rich did a fine job and we should be almost impervious to moisture. Water is clever, though, and can find it's way into everything over time. But for now, we are cautiously optimistic about the future of the columns.

Friday we had dinner at the Millers with our dinner group. It was delicious, as always, and the discussion only drifted into politics once for a brief period before moving on to movies. If the Christophersons and Freestones see this, we missed you.

This morning on my walk I was keenly aware of how beautiful our valley is. So later I went back out to get a few shots of the aspens on the mountains that are now in full color. Earlier on the walk I filled my pocket with acorns from various places along my walking route. On Thursday, walking home from Design Review, I picked up a beautiful horse chestnut in front of Berg Mortuary on Center Street. While gathering acorns this morning, I had a brain storm that a bowl full of nuts would be great this time of year, and so I drove down to the mortuary and gathered a bunch of conkers (horse chestnuts). Kris thought I had taken leave of my senses, but once she saw what I had in mind, seemed less concerned about my mental state.

Inner columns with old bases removed

The newly replaced bases and moldings

Stephen, Ann, Allen, Nancy, and Stan

Kris, Sharon, Stephen, and Ann

Me: sprouts, Nancy: sweet potatoes, Sharon: rolls and turkey,
Vicki: apple pie, Stephen and Ann: ice cream

I love these mountains

The aspens are glowing

These give the French their name for the color marron

That's all for now.

OXO

D.

Abundance!

The first freeze will be here soon, probably this week or the next, so we are at the end of our wonderful tomato and cantaloupe crops. It is astounding how much two little tomato plants, and one tiny cantaloupe plant have produced; it really is a miracle. I am afraid, however, that all the fruit won't make it to maturity. We have given tomatoes to Emily (whose poor plant on her front porch produced only one little tomato), we sent cantaloupe and tomatoes to Texas with Debby, have given cantaloupe to Phillip and Meags, and have eaten gobs of tomatoes, but we still are overflowing with good stuff.

Ann, who had just dried a box of nectarines, suggested drying tomatoes. We borrowed Millie's dryer and it worked a charm. So we will have some good dried-tomato pasta dishes this winter.

I hope these ripen before they freeze

The tomato bushes that ate Manhattan!

The guys on the left got dried

Dryer courtesy of Millie

Started at 9:00 A.M., they were finally
finished at 4:00 in the morning

Packed in olive oil for the winter

By the way, Suzi and Ken Heinz and family were in town this weekend. They are doing school tours with Sage, Suzi's niece who lives with her. We had a nice visit with them over dinner at P712.

Sage, Ken, McKenna, Suzi, DT, and Kris

That's all for now.

OXO

D.

It's Always Fun When Debby Comes . . .

Long-time friend, Debra Sue Darling Gibbs has been with us for the week and as the title of the post says, it's always fun when Debby comes. Of course we ate lots of good meals including food from Communal, Bombay House, and La Casita. There were also a few retail trips to Salt Lake City and various parts of this valley that I mostly escaped. Here are some of the highlights of the week, not including General Conference.

Katy's grade-school (etc.) friend Megan Kawasaki
who is assistant manager at Communal

The ladies post-dinner

A Friday excursion in Debby's fun convertible

Lunch at In-N-Out prior to a fall-leaves trip
over the Alpine Loop

The maples are finishing and the aspens
are just coming on

The convertible was a great way to enjoy the day

The summit view down into American Fork Canyon

Friday evening we saw this movie:
two thumbs up!

Joined for dinner after conference by Chelsea

Richard Johnson (not to be confused with Robert Johnson)
is doing a few projects for us this week including these
shelves in the garage

Monday, Debby joined us for compound dinner cooked
by Colton and Millie, and Tuesday she joined us for
dinner at Phillip and Meagan's

It was a great visit and we hope to get together again soon.

That's all for now.

OXO

D.