Goodbye to January!
It was fun leaving out some of my snowman families for the month.
Bethany likes to snuggle with Sadie.
We attended the funeral of a friend who is our age.
Jacob got to go to the temple for his first time...
...and we got to be there...
...along with most of his family!
Another evening Grandpa met these three at the temple to help perform Confirmations.
The missionaries are busy.
Here is Elder Harrison at Cali's baptism
The Ogden Zone at the Ogden Temple:
Sister McClellan and companion
District Council and lunch
Grandpa and I went on an outing up in the foothills.
It's very green this time of year.
Two roads diverged and we had to decide which way to go
We made a good choice and headed up first through Plymouth,
a town settled during the Gold Rush.
And then we went even further up the mountain...
and found ourselves on a very narrow two-way road.
We arrived in Fiddletown and took in a few of the sights
including the town's fiddle!
Fiddletown was first settled in 1849 and was largely populated by transient miners living in tents or wooden sheds, though Fiddletown grew rapidly in 1852 when gold was discovered in the dry riverbeds of the surrounding area. At the time of its founding, placer mining was the most popular mining technique, which is heavily dependent on water. The local water source, Dry Creek, ran dry during the summer months, during which time the miners were said to be "fiddling around," thus the name. Alternatively, the name was given because many of the early settlers from Missouri played fiddles for entertainment.
Then we went even higher up and ended in the city of Volcano.
It was fun to see the St. George Hotel which we stayed in
50 years ago during the summer of 1974.
It was built in 1867, after the two previous hotels (the Empire Hotel and the George Hotel, originally built as a boarding house in 1852) burned.
Here are a couple of 50 year old photos from that trip:
Speaking of old, Camille celebrated her 14th birthday!
January is a good month for a good book!
Heidi recommended this book to us and we both enjoyed it very much.
It's geared to high school age so it's not too long. It's hard to put down actually!
Not only is the story riveting, but it was interesting learing about the Thai culture and how literally the whole world came together to make this happen.
At the end, the author tells the most important thing she learned:
"They taught me that “impossible” exists only in your mind.
You are capable of so much more than you can even imagine."
