Surprise for Dad

Many thanks to Dee and Sharol for bringing dad a surprise birthday present last weekend.  Dad had admired Dee’s bike one time and mentioned that he would like one also.  Uncle Dee then made it a mission to find such a bike and over a period of time searched and searched until he found just the right one.  And then, he and Sharol make the trip to deliver it.  What a brother and what a sister!  It is very hard for Sharol to travel, but it was so wonderful to have them both here.  Thank you so much.  Thanks also to whichever of our kids contributed to the purchase as well.

While here Dee and dad joined our two sets of Elders on a service project. The Elder with the cowboy hat said,”he’s your brother?” with a tone of unbelief when he met Dee who is 6 ft. tall.  We’re used to that aren’t we Dee?

The Fair…and other things

		Labor Day VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

It was great to have Ron here for a visit, but boy were we surprised when he drove in pulling a trailer.  I was so excited for Cathy and the rest of the family.  What fun they will have!

The other pictures show how the road to the fair is almost as fun as the fair and people set up their tents and other means of camping all along the way.  It took us about 45 minutes to drive from our house to the fairgrounds a distance of about 3 miles.

  I had the great privilege of meeting the last surviving Navajo code talker who was in the group of 29 Navajo solders who created a code based on their language.  There code was never broken by the Japanese during the Pacific part of World War II.  I shook his hand and thanked him with tears in my eyes.  He is 91 years old.  

I am so glad I caught these pigeons on camera this particular morning.  They have been resting in our tree for a little while almost every morning all summer long.  This particular morning they just looked so beautiful I thought I’d see if I could get a good photo of them not knowing they wouldn’t be back again until next summer.

You might notice the two photos I took while we were at the rodeo.  We were an hour late so were up in the nose bleed section, but they do show the way the area looks beyond the arena.

Late Summer

		Monsoon Season VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Thought you might like to meet Lee, the old cowboy sitting on our front porch.  As Sr.  missionaries we are restricted from giving rides, food, or money to anyone and there is even a sign to that effect by our front door, but…….there is a problem here.  Elder Grimmett, who likes to keep rules, just couldn’t bear to send Lee away hungry, so Lee ri;ngs the bell, sits himself in a comfortable chair and waits.  Sure enough Elder Grimmett makes him a lunch and this happens several times a week.  

The monsoon season is demonstrated in several of the photos showing the heavy rains, mud everywhere on the rez as you can see on the Elder’s pickup and our back yard.  We had one exceptionally bad storm that produced marble sized hail.  I have before and after pictures of our garden…lush before the hail, destroyed after the hail.  However, at this posting our garden has come back in many ways.  You can see how it pocked the vegetables, but the plants rebounded and we are having good produce now.  However some of the plants were late in recovering so there won’t be time for the winter squash to mature or the melons, and the cucumbers and tomatoes were ruined.

We have permission to take members of our ward to the Snowflake temple so will be doing that once a month from now on.  Our first trip was very enjoyable as you can see from the photo.  We will be going again next Saturday. 

The photos with the Elders is a farewell pix, they were being transferred.  The baptism pix are members of our ward. The young man with his little son has adopted us.  I think he and the little guy will be our Sunday dinner guests from now on. 

The picture of Elder G. on the roof is him fixing a hole up there.  The wall picture shows containers on the floor catching the rain and the mirror on the wall shows the job all finished.

We were excited to have our son-in-law come visit us.  He is coming again this coming weekend.  We can’t wait to see him again.

We are doing great.  We love the people we meet every day, we love our ward and our new friends.  We love the missionaries young and old, and we love our little blue house.  On the other side of the coin we miss our family so very much, but we feel their prayers and love and count the  days until we are in their midst again.

More This and That Pix

		This and That Addition VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

If you look at the garden on the left you will see where a cow broke through the fence and ate half of the garden.  It was devastating. This is the garden of the MLS/garden missionaries just two trailers away from us.  Their garden was so beautiful and is the demonstration garden for the garden program in our area.   I texted this photo to our FM guy and he wasted no time in driving here from where he lives which is an hour and a half away.  By that night their broken fence and our garden fence on the right side garden were installed with the hopes that they would be higher and stronger.  If by chance they are crushed down as well, even stronger fences will be installed.  A couple of days before the above fence was broken down, our fence was broken down and a cow was in our back yard.  Fortunately we saw her and chased her away before she got into our garden.

This and That

Thought you might like to see how our garden is doing.  Also there is a picture of Elder Grimmett building a fence between our house on the right and the new trailer for the Window Rock Elders on the left so the cows couldn’t get through there. 

One day in our office a young woman came in to use the copy machine.  She said she and her husband had started a business selling tamales in Ganado, so we went over, bought some, loved them, and now are regular customers.  Her husband is from Mexico and she is a Navajo.  She uses his family recipe and let me tell you, they are the best tamales I’ve ever had.

The young man with the lizard was just baptized yesterday along with his teenage sister.  His mother is in the background.  He is such a fine young man and his sister is very special, too.   It was a very special baptism service.

The other folks in our living room were there for our CES class on a Sunday evening.  The missionary couple you see live just two trailers away from us.  They are what is called MLS/garden missionaries around here.  She is a master gardener.  They both know every garden on their assigned area of the rez inside out.  They work very hard.

  The picture in the woods was taken on the 4th of July when our district celebrated by having a picnic.  We got rained out just after we finished eating.  Perfect timing and no one complains about the rain because this part of the world is in a drought and the rain is prayed for and welcomed.

The Smaller Elder with the green hoodie has been called to be a district leader and will be leaving us on Tuesday.  We will miss him very much.  Just had the Elders to dinner today.  Yesterday was their pday so they dressed accordingly as you can see in the picture I took last night,  and of course they look much more official in their traditional missionary dress today.  They use the conference to conference reference for when to wear their jackets.  They come off after April Conference and go on after October Conference.

Navajo Weavers

		Rug Auction VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Last Friday we went to our District meeting in Crownpoint, New Mexico.   We drove our van which holds us and Elder and Sister Long and Elder and Sister Bouwhuis  very comfortably.  In the picture above you will see Elder Bouwhuis in the row behind Elder Grimmett and Elder Long is in same row on his left.  The Bouwhuis Elder and Sister are our close neighbors here in St. Michaels.  They are serving as MLS/garden missionaries as are the Longs.  Coincidentally, the Longs served a mission with the Days (Mark and Pat) last summer.  Pat Day is our own Pat Macey/Coloca.  The Days are now serving as site missionaries in San Diego at the Mormon Batallion Visitors Center.  The Longs live in Sawmill out on the rez, which isn’t too far away from us.  The long drive to Crownpoint is more fun when we go together.

The picture above was taken while we were waiting for the Navajo Weaver Women’s auction to begin.  After our district meeting, followed by a nice lunch at the Navajo Technical College cafeteria, we walked over to the high school where the auction was to begin in an hour or more.  We wanted to be early to snag chairs and also to look the rugs over.  In the hallways of the school many vendors had set up their wares so that is why you just see the Elders holding down the chairs.

The Navajo Weavers Association was started 40 or so years ago when one woman became incensed because the women spent so much time and work on the rugs but weren’t being honestly dealt with by traders who would buy a rug for maybe $200 and then sell it for $5,000.  She thought of having an auction where the money bid on the rug went directly to the weaver and thus these auctions began.  At the beginning all of the weavers stood up so we could give them a good appreciation applause and each rug has attached on the back the name and location of the weaver who created it.

If you do the slide show above you can see the two rugs we bought.  The prices are shocking at first, but when you think of the work and the artistic ability of the weaver, it makes more sense.  Also on the slide show are a couple of unique pots made from clay and horse hair.  Elder Grimmett fell in love with them immediately and I fell for the story rugs that had sheep in them so we both came home happy and $200 poorer, but rich in wonderful memories.  I hope all the district meetings aren’t followed by auctions or we may have to sell the farm.