4 Bits and tidbits

Lyle's family
A short e-mail from Lyle: "Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, I have been working 10-12 hrs a day so has been awhile since I have e-mailed anyone. Helping my brother combine corn. Had 1800 acres to do, got about 300 left to do."

In a separate e-mail to me a few days earlier, Lyle wrote: "Hi, news from Idaho-Oregon-Washington. Stan and Terry are back to work. Dave is a grandfather. His daughter JJ had a baby girl born 11-10-09, weight 8 lbs 7 oz. and was 19 1/2 inches. They named it Nevaeh Jennavieve Peterston. I'm working 10-12 hours a day helping Ronnie in his combining of corn for Simplots. We only have about 800 acres left to do. Kids in Washington all seem to be fine. I will run up there if roads are OK after get through doing the corn. Have not any plans for Thanksgiving yet. Happy Thanksgiving everyone."

Dean's family
Paul and Eliza and their two boys left Georgia Friday night to go visit Robert and Rachael and their three girls in southern Illinois. They drove about four hours from Atlanta and stopped overnight somewhere in Tennessee. They drove another two hours Saturday morning until they reached Harrisburg, where they were the first in the family to see the new house Robert and Rachael are renting. They had moved in just the week before. Paul and Eliza plan to return home on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, so that Paul can run a half marathon in Atlanta on Thanksgiving morning.

And oh, did we mention, that on their drive along the back roads of Kentucky, the road stopped at the edge of the Ohio River. No bridge. Illinois was on the other side. But it turns out there was a ferry, and three-year-old Peter was so excited that their car got to ride on a boat.

Dale's family
"Ever have one of those days," Sarah posted yesterday. "You know the kind, where you know you should have never got out of bed in the first place. I had one yesterday."

"I started my day off going to take my Social Studies test at a place I had never been to before in Plano. I was supposed to arrive 30 min before the test started so I left my house an hour earlier, thinking I would have plenty of time. I followed my google map to the T and could not for the life of me find the place. Thank goodness Dylan was still home and he googled in and followed the map and guided me street by street. I made it, but by the skin of my teeth. I finished the test quite quickly, which is never a good sign, I'll know the results in a week.

"While I was testing Dylan was taking Claire to practice for the primary program, but I must have wrote it on the calendar wrong, or missed a memo, cause when he showed up at the church on one was there.

"Just wait, there's more.

"I get home from my test and we decide, we will pull the humongo pampas grass in front of our house and rid ourselves of the beast that has been taking over our house. In the process Dylan breaks a shovel.

"We packed up and went to Home Depot to buy a new shovel, the man at the checkout gave us a spiel about hanging onto our receipts because they guarantee their plants for a year if you have the receipt. I grabbed the receipt and sat in in the cubby in the center console for safe keeping. As we pulled out of the lot Dylan rolled down the windows and as if waving goodbye the receipt flew out the window. I got a dirty look from Dylan for not hanging onto the the receipt. Little did we know that within 15 min we would need that receipt.

"We get home and once again Dylan starts to dig, and once again break the shovel. Luckily Home Depot was cool about it, and replaced the second shovel without a receipt.

"After his second trip to the Depot it was time to get ready for our evening at the temple. We shower get cleaned up and I go to look for my recommend and can find it no where. We looked for an hour and could not find it anywhere and gave up.

"Instead, we went to dinner and got some Christmas shopping done. I was just happy to spend some alone time with Dylan, something that seems like it doesn't happen very often anymore.

"It ended well, but as I laid down to go to sleep last night I couldn't help but chuckle, what a crazy day."