Yesterday we did something we had never done before. We went into the mountains and hunted a Christmas tree in the wild! I first got the idea a year ago when a friend posted on Facebook how she had done that.  I wanted to do it then but the permits were all sold out.  So this year, near the beginning of November, we went  online  and bought a permit. It cost $22 with tax. We also printed out the map of the area where we could go. We bought our permit in the Heber-Kamas Ranger District. Yesterday we downloaded the map to Scott's phone and headed out. We drove to Heber, UT, and then headed east on Highway 40 towards Daniel's Summit. We turned off a couple of times but decided to keep going. When we were almost to Daniel's Summit and Lodgepole Campground (but didn't realize it), we pulled off the road onto the shoulder and parked by some other cars. A picture of this area I got off the internet--looks like summertime. One of the challenges was to get down the hill we pa...

Today on Facebook I posted that I was thankful for the many interesting podcasts and inspiring videos, then I shared a video. Here's the background to that post. Recently I've started listening to a podcast called "All In" which features Morgan Jones interviewing some member of the Church of Jesus Christ who has an interesting story to tell.  She interviews all kinds of people and it's almost always very interesting. This week the  interview  was with Devin Graham. He is a YouTuber with a channel called Devin Supertramp who is constantly creating videos, filmed all over the world.  He has 6 million subscribers. Here is a sample: The reason I was impressed with Devin is that he talked about how he has tried to keep his standards despite many opportunities to not keep them and knowing a lot of people who haven't. Early in his career, Budweiser offered him a large amount of money to do videos for them but he turned them down because it didn't meet his standar...

When I got married I had the mistaken idea that I would be able to use the gifts I got for my whole marriage.  Fortunately I was wrong--my marriage has lasted much longer than many of the gifts I got!  Here are the pizza pans I got for my wedding. They were one of my best gifts. They are not beautiful but they make good homemade pizza thanks to the holes in the bottom. We have used them over and over and over.  Too bad I can't remember who gave them to me so I could thank them properly.  Here's to homemade pizza!

 This year I planted one of my biggest gardens ever. Last fall we chopped down our big silver maple tree in the sandbox that was shading too much of the garden and we put in another bed near that area.  So I planted a bunch of corn, lettuce, tomatoes, LOTS of green beans, peppers, basil, onions, zucchini, butternut, cantaloupe and cucumber. Ironically I had fewer people than ever to feed at my house so I gave some away but we ate a lot too. My most impressive harvest was my onions but the corn and beans were also good. I grew an onion that was almost 2 pounds. My tomatoes were on the small side and we had way too many cherry tomatoes. Next year, I'm not planting the heirloom tomatoes--I was disappointed with how those turned out. I think I need to improve the soil too. Here are a few pictures:

The clearest answer I've ever received to a prayer happened in relation to my kidney donation.  Here's how it happened. After I qualified to become a kidney donor, Camille and I became part of a chain that had 9 donors and 9 recipients. The surgeries were all scheduled to happen within a few days of each other starting May 24. But then Camille got a cold. They decided she was too sick and sent us home. I felt relieved we had a few more weeks to prepare. Our son David was coming home from his mission on May 31st and this was an event I did not want to miss. He had been gone for more than 2 years and we were so excited to see him and celebrate the successful completion of his mission.  Dropping off David at the MTC So I was very unhappy to get a phone call the next afternoon from the transplant team. They had decided to go ahead with all the other donations and transplants and do Camille's later. They wanted me to donate my kidney on the exact day David was coming home--May 3...