So I'm here at the computer checking out the last of the Olympic events and I thought I'd better check the kids' blogs. On Breanne's, I noticed that we hadn't updated for 3 weeks! Oh well, now I have tons of things to talk about.
Three weeks ago was the fair. McKenzie and Kennan took their lambs up to show them. I thought the lambs looked really good, but the judge (who was blind in one eye and couldn't see out of the other) didn't think so. All though the lamb McKenzie showed did take 5th in its group. Ellen and I took the camper up the week before to reserve our spot. It was right next to the barn where the animals were kept.
When we went up on Monday, I stayed the night with them. At 4:30 in the morning, somebody at the fair decided that they would wash their pigs. So for the next hour and a half, you could here the pigs squeal, water running, people talking (by the way, I know it wasn't kids who got up, it was their parents who did all of the work), trucks starting (another by the way, a law should be in place for how many times you can start a diesel truck that early in the morning, the guy must not know how to start it because he practiced 15 times!), and all other noises. So I got up and left to go back to Cokeville to cut hay for Stan.
Here is McKenzie and Kennan washing their lambs before the big show. Aren't they just loving it all?
Friday of that week was the big sale of the animals. I went for the first time because Uncle Ron (who usually buys our lambs) was sick and couldn't go. He had asked me to bid on the lambs for him. I didn't know how much he was willing to spend. Stan ended up going there also to do a little campaigning. He was running for Lincoln County Commissioner. I just told him to bid on the lambs. As it turned out, the kids didn't sell their lambs until at the end, almost 5 hours later!. It was so boring, just waiting and waiting. I thought it was run very poorly. To make matters worse, if you didn't have a buyer before hand to buy your lambs, you wouldn't get much money. I felt sorry for the kids who didn't have a buyer.
Kennan is showing his lamb at the auction. McKenzie is with the lambs after the auction. All in all the kids did a good job and got a fair price for their lambs, thanks to Uncle Ron for buying and Stan for doing the buying for Ron. The family had fun at the fair, but I'm not a fair goer so I didn't care to much for it all.
Kandyce has been spending time at home before she left for school. She needed the rest to help her recover from her sickness. She is doing great. She went to St. George to visit a former companion and also went to a wedding. She also visited with a guy that she was lined up with when we went to Mesquite to do a volleyball camp. She left for school yesterday and is all ready for it to start.
We went up Pine Creek with the Teichert family to have one last get together before we start school. Actually, I started school on the 20th, McKenzie started volleyball on the 18th and Kennan started junior high football on the 19th. Yes, Kennan is playing junior high football. So here are a couple of pictures of us all there.
We had a ball there like we always do. We just had hot dogs, chips, watermelon, and smores without the marshmallows. We forgot them.
Brady is also doing well on his mission. The district president and the mission president has challenged him to get a branch started in Jelgava by December. They moved in a couple or Russian speaking elders to help him and his companion. He is having some success. He does have some baptisms lined up for the end of the month. This is what their meeting house looks like, he's at the piano:
The last two weeks we have been spending time watching the Olympics. What a great two weeks to watch athletes try their best. Some were successful and others weren't. Ellen really enjoyed watching the swimming and how Michael Phelps did so well. What a specimen! Ellen used to be a swimmer when she was in high school. So this meant something to her. I tried to stay up late to watch the volleyball, but there were times I'd rather sleep. I was really excited for the mens team to win the gold medal, especially after what happened to Hugh McCutcheon's family. I met Hugh a number of years ago when he was still a player at BYU. He actually worked with my team when I was at Bear Lake. When we would go to BYU to watch the men's team play and Hugh was the assistant, he would talk with me. The assistant, Ron Larson, is also a friend of mine. I met him at a team camp in Idaho Falls. He also worked with my team when I was at Bear Lake. He used to coach San Diego's mens team. When they would play BYU, I would go and visit with him. He is a great guy. And of course, I know Ryan Millar. I actually played volleyball with him at a coaching/team camp. He and I played against Carl McGown and Scott Larkin. Ryan would say, "You play here and I'll block this half of the court." It was fun. Carl had me make sure Ryan did a good job with the camp. Of course when Lauren told me her sister married Ryan, that just made it all the more cool. But I just like to see the emotion of the athletes when they would try their best. Sometimes their best wasn't good enough. Just seeing how excited even the bronze medalist would get was fun. I would really like to get a highlight video of the men's volleyball team, especially their last three matches. Kennan liked to watch the USA mens basketball team. They did a great job also. It was a great two weeks for me.
With school starting, I'll try to keep you all up-to-date with the happenings at CHS. Make sure you go to www.cokeville.com for the opportunity to listen to games online and other happenings. We are trying to get some expensive equipment to be able to bring you video feeds of our games online. So if you have tons of money and you don't know what to do with it, just let me know because we could use it for Channel 39 Panther television.
