Christmas Eve

Just thought I'd share a few short clips of the girls opening their 1 present on Christmas Eve. Alyssa and Cayla opened their presents from Brittni, and Brittni opened her present from Alyssa.

Piano dream revisited....and fulfilled!

After much contemplation and consideration of many facts, including my wages being lowered once again, I need to sell this house in at least 6 years and thus will be buying a much smaller place, have 2 more kids to put through college, and the state of the economy, I decided I needed to downsize my dream. I have always wanted a new piano but it was only the past few years I had decided I wanted a baby grand piano. I decided to go piano shopping this past weekend and see what there was out there in upright pianos that might be more practical and economical. I was quite excited to discover that I already had enough money saved towards the baby grand that I could purchase an upright piano of the brand I wanted. Since Cayla is the one taking piano lessons right now, she was excited as I at the prospect of a new piano and she and I headed out Monday and purchased one. The salesman actually told me if I change my mind down the road and want a baby grand, he will give me my full purchase price back on this one towards a baby grand.

It is hard to get a good picture because it is so shiny that everything reflects in it, but it is beautiful. It is a polished mahogany color. We looked at one that was more French Provincial in style, but we didn't like the key action, much harder to play, so we opted for the taller one with quicker key action. It is a Young Chang and I love it!

In with the new.




And just as a reminder.... Out with the old. It actually looks better in pictures than it does in real life.


I was quite surprised how sad I was the past 2 days thinking of letting this piano go. It went to the store to be sold on consignment, which I don't really expect to get any money from. I did do some research this morning and found out that it was manufactured in 1927, making it 83 years old, and I have owned it for 33 of those years. I was really tempted to hang onto it, but in the end, I let them take it.

Road Trip 2010

Cayla and I had another great road trip this summer through Wyoming (the most boring state on the face of the earth) and South Dakota. We headed out Friday and made it to Buffalo, Wyoming, which was just a place to sleep that was close to our first destination. Our only memorable experience there was turning into this beautiful Maverick to get gas, only to discover there were no gas pumps, nor was there anything in the store. We made it there a little too soon as it hasn't opened yet, but it is a really nice looking store (good job Dan!).

Saturday morning we had a 2-hour drive to Devil's Tower where we did the 1.2 mile walk around the base and watched the crazy people trying to climb to the top.

On the Devil's tower road is a huge prairie dog town that was one of Cayla's favorite spots on our trip. There are lots of prairie dog towns in South Dakota but she thought this one was the best. We could actually be entertained here for a long time if we didn't have other places we needed to be.

We had next planned to take a bus tour in Deadwood, SD, but when we got there the next tour wasn't for a couple of hours and the town itself is mostly casinos and saloons. It took us forever just to find a bathroom and there was really nowhere decent to eat so we forwent the tour and headed on into Rapid City. We deemed this the biggest midadventure of our trip.

Rapid City has 39 presidents in bronze on their street corners downtown, so Cayla decided to pose with all of them. She did 24 before she was worn out from posing, and we had to do the rest of them the next morning before we headed out of town. Here she is with the biggest joke of a president (besides Obama) Jimmy Carter, but I do love that pose she has going on here. (I will at some point get all the pictures uploaded to facebook.)

We headed out to De Smet, clear across the state, and stopped at Wall Drug, which is supposed to be a great american roadside attraction that is clearly NOT!! I suppose if you like to shop for hours for meaningless trinkets it might be fun. We did have a great piece of homemade apple pie and the thing that made them famous, the "free drink of ice water" before heading down the road again. (We did make the most of it by having Cayla pose on the giant rabbit.)

In De Smet, population 1100, we stayed at this lovely bed and breakfast that is just 2 houses away from the house Charles Ingalls built for his family after Laura had married and moved away. The B&B is a house built by the banker, Thomas Ruth (from the Little House books) in 1894. http://beyondlittlehouse.com/2009/03/26/the-prairie-house-manor/

The current owners moved from New Jersey 3 years ago to a completely different lifestyle in the small town of De Smet so they could run this B&B. They deem it a Christian business, and have Bibles in all the rooms. I was completely fascinated by their story. They took a family trip 3 years ago to all the Laura Ingalls Wilder home sites. They traveled by train to Wisconsin and then went by car to all the sites. In De Smet they were discussing with the B&B owners how they would like to own one someday, to which the owners told them it was for sale. They went home, prayed about it, and within 3 months had purchased it, and within a year were living there. I just can't imagine going from a New Jersey lifestyle to a small town on the prairie lifestyle, but they love it. I, myself, can't wrap my head around making that kind of a change. I mean, it was a nice little town, but it is hours away from any type of mall or real shopping.

We attended the pageant "The First Four Years" out at the Ingalls Homestead the night we arrived. It was a beautiful night with a huge full moon and a nice breeze out on the prairie. The acting was marginal at best, but the evening was enjoyable nonetheless just to be sitting and doing nothing in the cool evening air. We took our comfy camping chairs which were much better than the hard bench seats with no backs that they provided (planks laid across cinder blocks).

This is the Ingalls house in town, and last house they lived in, built in 1887, two doors down from the B&B. There was a lot of memoribilia inside, as the last owners had stored everything upstairs waiting for Grace to come reclaim it someday, but she died before doing so. Mary's braile bible was pretty interesting to see, along with her bead work, which is hard to imagine doing when blind.

Brewster School, the first school Laura taught at (replica, and not at its original site), but in town next to the museum.

It was pretty cool seeing the actual homestead property. They have a lookout tower where you can see the entire acerage which is quite extensive. They have a walking tour you can take of the property along with pioneering activities. Cayla made a corn cob doll (even got to clean the corn off the cob with an old corn cob stripping machine) and she made another rope, like she did in Nauvoo. She is getting to be a professional rope maker.



Ingalls homestead house (replica) in the actual location.







We got to ride in this rig to the school house on the edge of the property, and Cayla got to drive it back.







I apologize for this video, but I was sitting a little too close to Cayla the Wagonmaster to be able to see what I was taping, I just had to aim the camera and hope for the best.













As we drive out of De Smet on Tuesday morning, we come upon some large birds (ducks, pheasants ?) sitting at the side of the road. A train is coming toward us and reaches the birds the same time we do, thus scaring the birds, who take off away from the train and right into the grill of my van. Feathers are flying everywhere, and in my rearview mirror I see a bird body plopping down the road behind us. My biggest fear was car damage, but Cayla was the brave one that looked when we first stopped, and assured me of no damage, just feathers and blood. After 3 car washes the feathers are still there (I'm not touching them to pull them out).




A ways further down the road we came upon 2 really large trucks and then about 8 of these farm machines. It was pretty fun dodging around them. When the coast was clear from the other direction they would move to the side, allowing us to hurry around/under them, one by one. It did provide us a few miles of entertainment on a long road in the middle of nowwhere.









We arrived back in the Black Hills early enough to go to Mt. Rushmore and the Cosmos Mystery Area.



I like the angle of this picture Cayla took with a view right up their noses. It was interesting to see how much as changed at Mt. Rushmore since we were there 15 years ago. They have a wonderful facility their with a great boardwalk path up to the monument that wasn't there before, and we caught up to a guided tour with a really enthusiastic ranger who was very knowledgeable and interesting to listen to.












Here is Cayla at Cosmos, trying to stand up straight. It may all just be tricks to make us look like fools, but it is still a fun place to go, and quite baffling even if you know it is just some kind of illusion. It sure feels real.











Wednesday was overcast and perfect for our outdoor adventures that day, which included Reptile Gardens, the Black Hills Maze, and Bear Country.

This tortoise at Reptile Gardens loved to be scratched and the more you scratched the higher up he stretched. When you quit, he would slowly lower himself down until the next person came along to give him another scratch.







This was my first trip to the Maze and it was a lot of fun. These pictures only show half of it. There are four towers and some bridges. You have to get to all four towers to stamp your ticket, and using the bridges is crucial in getting to where you need to go. We made it to the exit in just over an hour, with 45 minutes to an hour being the average time, so we did pretty good. If the sun had been out and cooking us, I don't know if I could have lasted.




Then it was onto Bear Country where I could sit forever and watch the bears, especially the baby bears in babyland.

Thursday I woke up to my phone talking to me and making static sounds. I found it sitting in a puddle of water that was from the ice bucket condensation. Being from the dry state of Utah, I had no idea condensation could cause such a large puddle. As we went about our day, I tried to dry the phone out. At one point, while trying to find a store to buy some rice, we ran across a small Verizon store in Pringle, SD. I decided to stop and see what they advised. It so happened that they had a bag of rice that was dropped off by another customer that no longer needed it, as he was able to save his phone. We put my phone in the bag of rice and went about our day.

On our way to Wind Cave (the 4th largest cave in the world) we came across a LOT of buffalo, some even blocking the road. The buffalo in front is a pretty normal-sized one, but the one behind was monstrous. He must be the great-grandaddy of the herd.

Wind cave was a lot of fun. The tour we took had 300 stairs (mostly down) and at the lowest point we were 225 feet below ground.

After a stop for lunch we went to Flinstones Bedrock City. This was pretty much a waste of money. While we had found it entertaining when Alyssa and Brittni were small, it doesn't look like they have done any maintenance in the 15 years since. It was dusty and broken down and a waste of time. We tried to make the most of it by taking Cayla's picture in every vehicle and picture spot available. This is one place I will no longer be recommending as a must-see. We considered this a half-midadventure.

Since Cayla had asked for and received, for Christimas, a woodcarving kit, we also went to the National Museum of Woodcarving where we ran into a busload of old people from Delta, Utah. I guess we didn't take any pictures there since I can't seem to find any.

We headed to Crazy Horse Memorial in a downpour, but by the time we got there, the rain had stopped and it was just nice and overcast, making for a pleasant visit there out of the sun. We ate dinner in the Laughing Water restaurant while we were there. Because of the rain, there were no bus tours going to the monument, and no blasting going on. Cayla would have liked to have seen some dynamite blasts going off. She can take her own kids their someday, as I doubt it will ever be finished in the next few lifetimes.

Friday morning I got up hoping to find my phone in working order. It seemed to work, but could not connect to service. I googled a few solutions and called Verizon, and it was decided I would have to go into Rapid City to see if it could be fixed or if I needed a new phone. I was due for an upgrade, and sort of wanted the new version of my phone, but didn't need it enough to actually do it. As it turned out the transmitter in my phone was shot, so I ended up with a new phone afterall. I love how they have now made all their phones mandatory to have at least 10 dollars worth of internet per month (unless you want the cheapest of cheap phones). However, in talking with other tourists in De Smet, who have AT&T, they hadn't had phone service for 2 days, and with Verizon I was never without it so I will stick with Verizon nonetheless.

We had an appointment at Jewel Cave for the afternoon, so on the way we stopped and browsed the main street of Hill City. I ran across a great store with some old hats that I just had to have for our costume closet. They are classic and look like they have never been worn. I never buy souveniers so I decided I would splurge on hats. I got all four for only 43 dollars, which I thought was a great deal.

Jewel cave was our last destination of the black hills. It is the 2nd largest cave in the world and the tour we went on had a total of 723 steps, both up and down, and at the lowest point we went in the cave we were 379 feet below ground.

This picture shows the "bacon" feature of the cave. It is a little hard to see, but in real, it looks like a perfect strip of bacon and is 26 feet long.

Saturday morning, it is time to head back home, but we are only going as far as Rawlins, Wyoming, so we weren't in a real rush to get up and on the road. We had decided to stop at Independence Rock (picture below) to scale it to the top this time. On the way past our first day, we had the wrong shoes on when we got to the rock and decided, after we got 1/4 of the way up, that we couldn't climb it in those shoes, so we decided to do it on the way home. This time we were prepared with our good shoes and sun screen. Unfortunately, my good walking shoes have only a strap on the back rather than a full heel, and as I tried to climb the rock, my feet were slipping out of the shoes. We were rather disappointed as we wanted to get to the top and see the inscriptions written there by the pioneers, but I promised Cayla that next year, when I have hopefully dropped another 40 or 50 pounds, and I have REALLY good shoes, we will take a weekend trip and hike the rock, as well as do the trail at Martin's Cove just down the street a ways.

We only had a 4 hour drive to get back home on Sunday so we stopped at Little America, WY, to grab some lunch. It's always a nice place to stop coming or going. They are a little slow, but the food is always good, and they have free ice cream cones if you have the patience to wait in line.

Cayla's Turn

Since I'm getting the hang of posting movies, I thought I would share Cayla's last piano recital.

And then if you click on the link on the right for Cayla's blog you can see the latest accomplishment she is bragging about. I was trying to put the link here, as I have done before, but for some reason it won't let me paste it at the moment.

Brittni

The past 2 weeks have pretty much been all about Brittni.

First, we celebrated her birthday on Friday by going to Fuddruckers for dinner, and then to Camie's new place for cake, ice cream, and presents.

Saturday, which was actually her birthday, she went to the Senior Dinner Dance at Thanksgiving point. This is Brittni and her friend Sadie all ready to go.

Then, yesterday, we finally got her graduated!

These 3 girls she has grown up with pretty much since birth.

Jessica Blockburger, Brittni, Christine Burns, and Rachel Edwards.

By some miracle, I got a movie to work!

Dad's Graveside Service

I was going to post my amateur video of the services here, but I guess it is too long and won't post, even when I tried to post it in 2 parts. It turned out pretty good for not really knowing what I was doing, or planning where I was going to film it from ahead of time. If anyone would like a copy I can burn you one. I love my new computer that has Windows 7 and will do everything that my antique computer with Windows 98 could not do.

I just tried to post the snippit here that I posted on Facebook of Dad and Joyce singing, but even that is taking forever to process so I guess I'll just have this plain post with no pictures or video.
Those of you that have posted videos, if you have any hints for making them work, let me know. Now that I can actually get the pictures and videos off my new handycam onto my new computer, I would love to be able to share.

Just leave me a comment if you would like your own personal DVD, and as soon as I can get some mailers to send them in, they will be on their way.

If you check out Cayla's blog.....

you can find out if you are smarter than a 6th grader.http://caylamaquellefindlay.blogspot.com/

My visit with dad

I went up to see Dad Saturday and it was nice to see him sitting up in the chair in the bedroom; however, it is pretty impossible to carry on a conversation. He doesn't speak loud enough to hear and his thoughts usually end in mumbling. If you make a comment or tell him something, it ends up in the direction of unreality, and it's hard to know exactly how to respond.

We did have one fairly interesting exchange, however.

I noticed on their bedroom wall one of those United States maps that you can pop in the state quarters. They were missing South Dakota and Hawaii. I told them I would have to bring them some as I'm sure I probably have duplicates at home. Joyce had a stack of quarters that she hadn't looked through yet so we went through them and found Hawaii. As Joyce went to grab her purse so she could check what coins she had there, dad says to me, "I have more faith," to which I replied, "that's great dad, you can never have too much faith." He says, "I have faith you are going to find the coins you are looking for." Joyce dumps out the very few coins from her wallet and there is a bright shiny South Dakota quarter. When we exclaimed we had found it, Dad just sat there and grinned with an 'I told you so' look on his face, to which Joyce commented that those kinds of things happen pretty much every day around there.

Check out Alyssa's new Blog

Alyssa has rejoined the blogging world. Check her out.
http://afindlay.blogspot.com/

Brittni is in the news!

http://www.midvalejournal.com/pages/full_story/?type=Articles&numitems=20&startitem=11&showimages=false&journals=MVJ&id=921

Lady Huskies have spirit to spare on Hillcrest bowling team
By Kim Riddle Smith
18 days ago
Hillcrest teammates Becky Pederson
With just four girls bowling teams in the league, Hillcrest's third place ranking might not be a big deal to some, but it's just fine with senior Brittni Findlay, who has bowled with the team for three years.
"We're not at the bottom!" she said.
With limited participation in the club sport, Hillcrest shares facilities and coaching with Riverton High school. The first place ranking in the league belongs to Taylorsville/Murray, second goes to Hunter/Cypress and coming in fourth is Olympus/Skyline.
The Hillcrest girls agree that what they most enjoy are the friendship and competition with students from other schools. Some bowlers, like Findlay and Becky Pederson, were already familiar with competition through parents who participate in bowling leagues. Tasha Witte, who also plays soccer and tennis at Hillcrest, is relatively new to the sport and signed up at the encouragement of her friends. Austin Todd rounds out the 2009-2010 Hillcrest team.
School spirit is apparent on the faces of Pederson and Witte, who show up decorated with green Husky paw prints and Hillcrest "H" painted on their faces.
Scoring is based on the results of six-player teams that bowl on four lanes at each meet. Points are awarded both individually and by team over a 10-meet season that runs from November through early February. Management of Allstar Lanes in Sandy donates practice time and lanes for the team's home meets.
Cassi Gonzales has coached the Hillcrest team for the past six years, after beginning with Riverton a year earlier. A third generation bowler, Gonzales looks forward to joining her father, Rory, who coaches bowling in the boys' league, in a season-end celebration at their home. They encourage every participant regardless of standing on the score sheets.
"We just want the high school students to come and have fun." Gonzales said. "There are plenty of trophies and congratulations for everyone in this league."