We have a WINNER!

www.cedarlivestockfest.com/gallery

Click on the link to see (past) photos of the Cedar City Heritage and Livestock Festival. It's fun. It's very small-town, it's rural. It's unique.

And Mike and friends are right in the big middle of it all! He has participated in the "People's Choice Dutch Oven Cook Off" for the past two years. He and friends cook up tons of food, serve it to total strangers who caste votes for favorite dishes -- and there are many to choose from-- and then this year they got to bask in the glory of being the overall winners! Their foods received the most votes from all the people. It WAS close, but still. It was a nice honor for them. Last year they worked their buns off and toiled very hard but didn't win a lot of prize money (which isn't a great deal, compared to the time and effort put into the thing). So this year was sweet.

Congratulations Mike and all your buddies! Can't wait till next year. He'll be warming up by cooking several dozen fruit cobblers in November for the Cedar City Birthday party. I'll be in Las Vegas. . .but if you're in Cedar be sure to come by for a good time--dancing and entertainment and food on November 11 from 8:30 to 11 pm in the SUU Ballroom. Fun times. Dutch oven cooking is alive and well in Southern Utah.

Fall

A college campus in the fall--nothing better, right? RIGHT! I love it here. I love my job. I love fall. I took the library's camera out on a little break this afternoon and snapped a few pictures.

I first began blogging about this same time of year...well, summer time anyway, three whole years ago. My how times flies when we're having fun! I think time flies even when we are NOT having fun, but then, I'm just getting kind of old. :-)


A favorite walk of mine (below). I take it almost daily on my way to take the daily deposit to the cashier's office. These maple trees are all shades of reds and yellows this year. I don't remember them being so vibrant. Of course, this picture doesn't do it justice. This is looking east toward the Centurium statues, for those of you familiar with campus.
The one below is actually taken from the window that's by my desk. I don't actually SEE that view because my back is to the window and it's way up on the wall. So, when I stood on a chair to take the photo, my co-worker gave me an odd look.. . . I just left her wondering. ha.

However, I DO see this little scene every time I return to my work station after helping a person at the front desk. It just makes me smile. :-) I mean, really--what's not to like about glowing leaves shining through the brisk fall air--right into my face. So what if there was snow on the mountain the other morning (it has since melted away from our immediate view), and my pretty tropical plants are traumatized because I left them out on the front porch too long? It's Fall! I get to ride my bike through crunchy leaves on my commute to and from work each day.

Caroline and I have been on walks a couple of evenings this week and we noticed the smell of wood-burning stoves and fire places. I had to tell her why it smelled like "fire?" I think she was alarmed, initially. It reminds us of the summer when there have been (not this year, thankfully) forest fires burning nearby.

Happy Fall, everyone. Oh, and I happen to love the food aspects of this season, too. Especially chocolate Halloween candy . . .candy corn. . . then Thanksgiving, etc. (Oooh, I can feel the pounds piling on already!)

Old Age

Funny story: Saturday, October 2nd, Mike drove with his good friend, Larry, up to Salt Lake to pick up some furniture that Larry had purchased on line. Mike has a truck, Larry does not. And Mike and Larry are good friends and spend a lot of time together. I don't know that they listened to Conference on the way up or back. Probably not. [But what a great missionary tool for non-member Larry! I'll have to ask Mike about that] But they did meet Nick in Salt Lake and took him out to lunch. Then, later, at home on Sunday, Mike remembered that he had a half a box of apples in the truck and he brought them into the house. I said, " You bought apples while you were up north?"

"Yeah. We took Nick to one of those. . . uh. . . um . . .garage sale for vegetables thing-ies."

HUH? Gail and I both said, "You mean a Farmer's Market?"

"Yeah, that's what it was."

"A Garage Sale for Vegetables." That's going down in the book of "Funny things we say as they grow older and can't remember stuff." Mike turned 58 on October 3rd. Fifty-eight. Wow. It sounds so old. But we don't really FEEL all that old. Apparently we can't remember a lot of stuff. Like, uh, words, you know? ha. Gail laughed so hard when Mike said that, she almost spewed milk out her nose. We'll be chuckling over that one for a LONG time. Hope it brought a slight grin to YOUR face. :-)

Funny old Memory

Well, Damian celebrated his 33rd(?) birthday this year. This is a recipe that has been in my file for many, many years--like since he was in second grade in Hawaii. They made Indian Fry Bread and Pretzels in class, and he brought home the recipes. I've used the recipes over the years. But mostly, I just like to take it out and look at it, see his cute handwriting, remember my "baby" from so long ago, and say, "Awww, isn't this cute?" and show it to who ever is close by. Tonight I showed it to Mike and Seth. And I decided to show it to my blog stalker friends, too. :-) I'm hoping Tandy gets to see it. I'm not sure I've ever shown it to her.

Alternative Winter Break

Mike and I have an adventure in store for us this December. First off, it means that we will not be able to attend Aunt Tuny's Christmas Get-together, and for that I am very sad.

BUT, we are going to be advisers for the Service and Learning Center's Alternative Winter Break to Guaymas, Sonora Mexico. Tucson and straight down to the coast. It's a long drive from Cedar City, and we do the drive in two days. About 30 people will be in 5 vans and a pickup truck. There will be just three non-students (adults?), I believe--Mike and me and the Service and Learning Center director, Pam.

I had my first informal meeting with Pam last week and had a lot of questions answered. We don't stay in tents or anything like that. It's a "nice" hotel. Guaymas is on the Baha California coast, less than 100,000 people, and the S & L folks have been going back to the same area and to the same school and orphanage twice a year for the past several years. It's a very popular trip and students who go once can't wait to go again and hope they are able to sign up for it. They have built up relationships with local people, and an American couple who live in the area. Students built a storage shed to hold equipment and supplies some years ago so have to haul less stuff across the boarder. We bring a lot of our own food, buy some locally (I hear there is WalMart there) and eat at the hotel for breakfast. We provide our own lunches from the food supplies, then eat out at a local restaurant for dinner. We do haul our own bottled water. :-) That's why they bring a pickup truck. The hotel is also the same one used in the past and the owners allow the group to use their commercial refrigerator to store perishables for lunches, so that's a big help. I'm sure the rooms are quite basic. But, Hey! I've stayed at the Blue Angel in Las Vegas--I can stay ANYWHERE! ha.


Some of the projects they do are at an elementary school with clean-up and painting, providing some supplies; an orphanage--just playing and doing any other jobs like assembling equipment or playground stuff; some building projects; some clean up; humanitarian and educational-type projects. Pam hopes to add sewing this year if she can scrounge a few old sewing machines like from schools that are upgrading and getting rid of the older models. That would be right up my ally, the sewing part. I used to know how to sew. But I know how to garden and economize with water, etc. They've taught basic water purification and some basic gardening skills in the past. They also have an evening "pool side" reflections time with the students to reflect on the day's activities, lessons learned, etc. and specifically asked for help with that aspect to make it more meaningful this Christmas season. I don't know how that will go . . . not exactly my forte.

Mike has helped the Service and Learning group learn how to lay brick and block before they left on these trips in years past, and that is how Pam came to invite us to come along as leaders/advisers. The student leaders are really in charge of the organization of it all--we're just along to help keep people from doing stupid things. I don't know that it's possible, but we'll give it a shot. Oh, and to work hard, too. There is also a group from the Technology and Construction department at SUU who will be there at the same time, but they will be doing some very specific building projects, not related to the Service and Learning projects. Mike and Boyd from Construction management are friends from long time past--we've known Boyd's family for over 30 years. Boyd's students will be building block homes, I think. We'll find out! Boyd is on Mike's SWATC advisory committee, too.




I was surprised to learn that we travel on Saturday, Dec. 11 all day to Tuscon, spend the night and then arrive on Sunday late in the afternoon. We work all day Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with an A.M and an P.M shift, lunch between, dinner after. Then on Friday A.M. we head back, spending the night in Flagstaff and get home on Saturday (the day of Aunt Tuny's get-together). "We only work for 4 days?" I asked the student leaders I met with. And they both nodded and said that it was four very long, very exhausting and fulfilling days.

So, you asked, Mom, and that's the answer! Off to Mexico. Mike finally applied for his passport just today. Students have to pay, but we don't, so that's a happy thought. It won't detract too much (money-wise) from our other big family trip in the summer, especially since I don't shop and Mike won't have any time to shop while we're down there. Mike will have to have a classroom substitute for the time we're gone, but I've got annual leave out the wazoo. I wish I could give him some of mine!!

I tried to find some photos on the SUU website of the past Alternative Winter Break, but couldn't find them. Fake ones from the internet will have to do. Adios! (Oh, by the way. Neither Mike nor I speak a word of Spanish!!)