November 2007

Hello family. We hope you are all well and had a good Thanksgiving. Thanks especially for those of you who updated your blogs the past few weeks. It was good to see what is going on in your lives.
Plus, you all really made this Family Newsletter a lot easier to publish. And don't you like the freedom and control you have over your own content. I always hated when the editor would mess with the copy, twisting it into HER own distorted mindset. Disturbing.

Our Thanksgiving took us to Island Park to meet up with Brandon and Whitney.
Henry's fork is beautiful this time of year. We pulled into IP on Monday evening. It snowed that night and never melted, staying in the -2 to 15 degree range all week. It didn't start to thaw until we got back to Boise.

Here is a shot of us at the top of Coffee Pot Rapids. After the river silently flows through the valley, it suddenly changes characteristics and rushes through a cut in the rocks, creating a plunging rapid. Evidently, a hundred and fifty years ago, a trapper was placidly paddling his canoe down the river looking for a pelt palace to set his traps. When he was unexpectedly sucked into the rapids, he lost all his equipage, except.....yes, you guessed it, his coffee pot.


After hiking in 2 miles, we came to the rapids and took this photo. You can see Whitney's pants are wet up to her knees. It didn't take her long to jump into the river. We keep her around for comic relief. She has been working at it long enough now that she is quite good at it.
Whitney and Brandon are still going to school at BYU-I. Brandon is looking for an internship for January through April of next year and will graduate in December 2008. Whitney is planning on a 2009 graduation. I think they are both getting tired of school. They love the social life, but not the studying and not having any money. Little do they know what "real life" is like or they wouldn't be so anxious to meet it.