New Years Eve

On Tuesday evening Edward and family arrived in Lethbridge.  We had a quiet New Year's Eve.  Edward and Jacqueline went visiting friends in the afternoon.  Erica, Bentley and Austen left after supper to go to parties in Calgary.  Jacqueline and Lincoln went to a movie in the evening.

Back Home in Lethbridge

The days passed quickly while we were in Lehi..  It snowed last night and the roads were covered with snow this morning when Darwin drove us to the airport.

We got to Great Falls and when we looked for our car it was buried in snow.

Under the snow the windows were covered with a thick coat of ice.  The windows and the trunk were frozen shut.  It took a while to dig out and scrape the windows before we were on the I15 north to Lethbridge.  There was blowing snow and at times poor visibility, but the roads weren't too bad.  We stopped in Shelby and at the border and were home by suppertime.  My poinsettia's leaves were just about dead.  I don't know if they will come back.

Christmas in Lehi

When we got to Lehi on the 19th the weather was beautiful.

Christmas Eve

Chloe on Christmas Morning

Darwin Received some Gifts

Later in the Week

Spanish Fork Festival of Lights

Yesterday we were going to go to Salt Lake to see the lights at Temple Square.  When we got to the I15 it was backed up for miles on on lanes going north, so we went south to Provo.

Chloe wanted to go to the L L Bean museum, but when we got there it was closed for the week.  We had supper at 180 Street Tacos.  Then we drove to Spanish Fork to view the Festival of Lights.  We were glad that we went at the time we did because when we came out there were cars lined up for blocks waiting to get in.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

Well it doesn't look much like Christmas outside here in Lehi.  We left the snow behind in Lethbridge on Friday and drove to Great Falls where we caught a flight to Salt Lake.  Darwin, Chloe and Owen picked us up at the airport.  On Saturday it began to rain and has been raining ever since.

It does look like Christmas inside.

In the last couple of weeks we seemed to keep busy.


One Wednesday we attended a session at the Temple.

We went to the Stringam Denecky Christmas party at the Country Club.

We attended Family Home Evening at Holts.  After dinner the group went to the LCI Choir Concert. 

We watched Taylor play basketball against LCI last Wednesday (Taber beat LCI).

 We did home teaching and visiting teaching and inspected missionary apartments.  We had a visit with Sue-anne when we did the Barnwell and Taber apartments.  We were privileged to help Sue-anne with the decorations for her ward Relief Society Party.

There were big dumps of snow two week-ends in a row.

Another Drive to Calgary

On Tuesday we drove to Calgary, visited with Jeremy on his birthday and had supper with Ross, Paulette, Jeremy's family and Austen.  We stayed overnight with Nathan and Tara and boys and stayed with the little boys while Tara went shopping on Wednesday morning. We drove back to Lethbridge on Wednesday afternoon.  Tara loaded us up with delicious caramels and chocolates - yum.

I went to Club a week ago Wednesday - good company and delicious food.

Transfer day was on Thursday - a rather large number of missionaries transfered - didn't run as smoothly as the previous.

Last night was our ward party.  We peeled, cooked and mashed twenty pounds of potatoes for the dinner.  The theme was Whoville and it was quite entertaining.

Bob was out walking this morning.  He took pictures of the lake and the "dumb geese".

Geese in the middle of the lake

The Wind Has Been Blowing

At least all the snow blew away and the sidewalks and roads are clear.  We hear this is the last day of wind and we will be having snow for several days again.  I went out today and did a bunch of shopping in hopes that I can stay in for a while.

I attended super Saturday a week ago Saturday and had lunch and did some quilting. 

On my way home from Family Home Evening at Pratts I slipped and just about fell, and had a sore knee for a few days.

Wednesday Nancy and I went out visiting teaching.

Bob and I  inspected apartments on Thursday.  There was still ice in some places.

Saturday we attended the Temple.   Later on Sue-anne, Darryl and Carter came for a visit.

Sunday morning we drove up to Calgary and went to Edward's ward.  Lincoln gave a talk and was advanced in the priesthood.  There was a pot luck after the meetings.  We stayed overnight and visited Tara, Matt and Lochlan and saw Orson for a minute or so on Monday before we headed back home..

Too Frozen to Write

Here it is - the middle of November already.  I am already looking forward to spring.

It has been below freezing for a week and will continue on for next week. 

Although, I would love to stay in the house, we have been busy.  The past three Thursdays we haven been traveling around inspecting missionary apartments - Coaldale, Barnwell, Taber, Milk River and West Lethbridge.  We still have the Lethbridge Stake to do.  We have been out buying bedding for the apartments as well.

We stopped in and visited Joan on the way home from Milk River.

Last Sunday we drove out to Taber for Remembrance Day dinner.  It was snowing and the visibility was poor.  Anybody would be crazy to drive in that weather, but Courtney was home for the week-end so we hazarded it. At least it wasn't quite so bad coming home.

We helped in the soup kitchen last Wednesday.  I chopped onions, buttered bread and carried dishes to the sink and I was dead tired when we finished.

Endings

Today Daylight Saving Time ended for this year.  Yahoo!  October also ended.

Our beautiful fall weather ended this week-end.  On Friday (halloween) the weather was wonderful - 18 degrees C. and no wind.  Even so we only had 30 "trick or treaters" that night.

Last evening it started snowing and has been snowing most of today.  I shoveled the sidewalk and the snow was very wet and heavy.

It was the end of the month and I went visiting teaching and our home teachers and my visiting teacher came to visit us this past week.

I also went to club in Raymond on Thursday.

This Morning in Lethbridge

Great Big Snowflakes

Banff etc

This past week we started on our Service Mission which is looking after missionary housing for Southern Alberta.  We attended missionary transfer day and were surprised that they had a devotional preceding the transfers.  We were asked to speak at this meeting.  We have not yet been set apart.

On Friday we drove up to Calgary and then rode up to Banff with Nathan and Tara.  We attended a conference of the Alberta Chapter of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society (Brigham Young University Law School).  We checked into the Banff Springs Hotel at the same time as D. Todd Christofferson (a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and rode in the elevator with him and his wife.  He gave the keynote address at the Friday evening banquet and his talk was impressive.  It was about freedom of religion and the law.

Saturday morning there were three classes, which Bob and Nathan attended, but I didn't.  The Honourable Madam Justice Carolyn S. Phillips of the Court of Queen's Bench was one of the speakers.

Nathan and D Todd Christofferson checking in

Views from our window in the Banff Springs Hotel:

Bob, Nathan and Tara went for a walk after we checked in.

Happy Thanksgiving

Friday evening we went to a wedding reception for Mark Frache.  Later in the evening Nathan and his family arrived.  We certainly enjoyed having them.  Today Sue-anne, Jeremy and their families joined us for Thanksgiving dinner and our usual Thanksgiving football game (the Turkey Bowl).  At three p.m. everyone started leaving and it is now very quiet.

Home in Lethbridge

We spent a quiet week in Lehi.  Amber and Darwin worked all day and Caden, Chloe and Owen had school.  We went to Cafe Rio on Tuesday evening.  The weather was beautiful.

Darwin drove us to the Salt Lake Airport on Thursday morning. Our flight landed in Great Falls and we drove home to Lethbridge, stopping at Subway in Shelby for Lunch.

The weather has been beautiful in Lethbridge since we arrived home.

Winter's Coming On

We woke up on Thursday morning to snow on the lawn and on the rooftops.  We drove to Great Falls with snow in the ditches, fields, hay bales and even on the signs.  As we got closer to Great Falls snow began to fall.



Great Falls Airport

 

Darwin met us at the Salt Lake Airport.

 

Last evening we drove to Orem to the Nova Scotia Mission reunion.  It was great to spend time with some of the couples we knew in Dartmouth.

Hard to Believe

Friday was my 75th birthday.  I can't believe it.

A large group of our family got together on Saturday to celebrate the big event.

The adults along with Langley and Mickey met at the Calgary Temple.

After the temple we went to Chilis to dinner.

A Good Looking Group

What a Difference a Week Makes

On September 10th we posted pictures of Henderson Lake.  Here is Henderson Lake a week later.

Murray Brothers and Sisters in Hanna

The rain had stopped.  We left Lethbridge on Thursday and stopped in Taber and had lunch with Sue-anne.  On we went to Hanna where we visited Ross for a while.  Later Paulette, Joan, Earl, Donald and Diane arrived and Joan served us supper.  It was good to visit as we don't get together often.

Bob and I stayed overnight with Ross and Paulette and after breakfast we left Hanna to get home in time for Bob's 1:30 appointment.  The old Honda only had one flat tire - just before we got to Tempest.  Bob is still useful to have around as he got the spare on the car in record time.  Here we are back in Lethbridge.  It is gradually warming up and we expect normal temperatures by Monday.

Still Summer?

Last week we had lovely warm, sunny weather.  Monday was the Labour Day holiday, but we stayed home and started to catch up from our long vacation.  On Thursday we went to the Temple with Sue-anne.

The beautiful weather ended on Monday and it has been cold and wet ever since.  We didn't have the snow that Calgary had - just a few flakes in the air.  Our tomatoes have been covered since Monday.

Monday we went to Rita Brooks funeral.  Tuesday Joan and Dom dropped in. Today Bob went walking around Henderson Lake and took some great photos in the mist.

Good Feeling

 Yesterday Bob got an e-mail from a student he taught in China - just the kind of note you like to receive.

Dear Professor Baines,
I’m WANG Yue, a student you’ve taught in 2009 at Nanjing University. I’m writing this letter to express my thanks to you for having taught me a lot during your wonderful Commercial Law Course.
Thanks for a programme set up by the Department of Justice of Hong Kong, I’m now studying at Chinese University of Hong Kong as a postgraduate student in LLM in Common Law. I’ve just came back from my first class of this term. I’m very glad to tell you that I think I’ve done well in this first class: I can understand what the professor is talking about, I can follow the professor’s thinking and I can  answer his question. All the courses here are taught in English, and the common law study is a wholly new experience compared to my study in Nanjing University — except for your Commercial Law Course. I can not handle this without your wonderful teaching. It is in your class that I’ve had my first contact with case studying which I think is the core spirit of the common law study.
Thank you very much! It is probably that after so many years, you have forget that commercial law course ( or maybe you’ll still remember it simply because the students in that course were too lazy to read all the cases). But I still want to send this sincere thanks to you.
Best regards,
Wang Yue

Wang Yue - front row left

Go Go Go

We got home from our vacation in the U.K. last Saturday about 5:00 p.m. 

Monday we had a good-bye supper for Courtney as we wouldn't see her again before she left to go back to Edmonton.

Tuesday was a beautiful day for a drive over the "Going to the Sun" highway.  Unfortunately the road was torn up nearly to the summit and with the construction and slow traffic it took two hours to navigate Logan Pass.  We finally arrived at  Echo Lake where Edward had rented a cabin.  It was a family type cabin with at least 7 bedrooms and bunkhouse rooms which had at least 4 queen size beds and many single beds.  The cabin had everything except a dishwasher.  It even had a theatre.  There were all the toys you could imagine - kayaks, paddle boards, a paddle boat, aqua rug.  The weather was great.

It doesn't look that big from the outside.

Deck

The weather was great and time passed swiftly.  Friday we returned by way of Del Bonita and it was an hour quicker than the Tuesday trip.  No lineup at the border, but they stopped us on the American side as well as the Canadian side.

We had planned to go up to Calgary for the Highland Games today, but decided to stay home instead.

Chorley

On Thursday after we left the Temple at Lingfield we drove to Chorley where the Preston temple if located.  We stayed at the Premier Inn.  The property had originally been a farm and some of the buildings were new and some were renovated (such as the stables that were turned into rooms).

The temple was six minutes away from the hotel.  Orson was well and we all attended the temple this morning (Friday).

 

 

We were out of the temple on on the road by 11:00 a.m.  It was a much easier drive than yesterday because the traffic wasn't as heavy as it had been around the big cities.  We are now settled in the Airport Holiday Inn.  Nathan and boys have gone to return the rental and to spend the U.K money they have left.  We leave to return home tomorrow morning - early.  Our time has passed quickly.

Border between England and Scotland