What've we been up to this month?

At the beginning of the month, the kids entered art projects into the Reflections Contest. The theme this year was "What is Beauty?" or something like that.

Lou's was eager to enter the contest after seeing her brothers do it for the past 3 years. She whipped out this drawing in about two minutes and was done. When I asked her for an artistic statement about her work she said "Strawberry Shortcake is beautiful because she is sweet and takes care of her friends." For Lou, almost everything revolves around beauty.

Little D disregarded the theme and created what he calls "Dragon Attack". He did say that he thinks the flames on the house are "beautiful". He drew about 15 or 20 rough drafts of Dragon Attack in the week leading up to the contest.


Ray also found it beneath him to keep to the beauty theme and created "Alien Genesis" He stated that this is a war between the "stock-eyed" aliens (on the left) and the "non-stock-eyed" aliens (on the right). He did note that the color of the alien world's ground is very "beautiful". This piece is really quite large, measuring about a foot tall and 3 feet long.

Despite the excellency of these entries, we didn't have a first place winner this year. Little D was really set on getting a trophy but since Ray and Lou didn't get one either, his little heart stayed intact.


Just yesterday Little D finally lost a tooth. This is a moment before the tooth came out. A chocolate chip cookie was what finally did the tooth in.

Little D has been counting on the money that the tooth fairy will bring so that he can go buy himself some toys. He figured that if he had twenty teeth to lose he was going to be able to buy something big. Ray explained to him how long it will take for him to actually get all that money.

The tooth fairy forgot to come last night and Little D wondered if his saying "I don't believe in fairies" to taunt Lou had actually killed his tooth fairy. We are still waiting to see if she is alive.


Meanwhile, David has undergone more tests on that big 'ol floppy kidney of his. The doctor seems to want to be very sure of things before the kidney comes out because he keeps ordering just about every test and exam in the book. We are trying to be patient but both David and I are tired of the appendage coming out of his back (nephrostomy tube aka virtual wiener).


For our anniversary in the middle of November, we took the family to Bryce Canyon. It was brilliant...but it was also freezing. We drove through the canyon, and jumped out briefly at view points. I also got hit with vengeance by the flu (fever, chills, body aches, cough, etc etc) while we were there. We are going to come back to camp here in the summer when conditions are more favorable.














If you go through the small towns of Tropic, Cannonville and Henrieville in Bryce Valley and you meet someone who lives there, you have probably met one of Dave's distant cousins. This valley is where Dave's great-grandparents and grandparents-- the Johnson's-- and all their many offspring lived. We stayed at a motel in Cannonville that is owned by Dave's 2nd cousin and we went to church in Henrieville where Dave's cousin Jeff is the bishop.

Here are the headstones of two of Grandpa Johnson's brothers, Sixtus and Thorley.



This is the cabin where Dave's great-grandfather Sixtus lived, and where Dave's grandfather was born. It is still standing in Henrieville. I say the next Johnson family reunion shouldn't be at the park in front of my house but should be in Bryce Valley!


At church we visited with the last living sibling of Grandpa Johnson. Her name is Delpha.

On the way home we detoured through Cedar Breaks. We got stuck in the snow at one point and a man drug us out with his truck. Minivans are so wimpy--at least ours is. It was soooo cold here that the boys wouldn't get out of the car. What is Lou doing with and bare legs and without her coat? We were only at this spot for as long as it took to snap a shot.


That's November in a nut shell.