Taylor's mission call

Taylor put in his papers two weeks ago. He is so excited to serve a mission that he sent in his papers 100 days in advance of his birthday. We waited this morning for a phone call from the post office to tell us his call came in. Around 9:00 I called the post office and they informed me that if you want them to call you need to let them know ahead of time. So we spent a long morning waiting for the mail to be delivered. We took Taylor to lunch and when we came home there was his letter.

We called Taryn and she was able to come right down from Salt Lake. Taylor called a couple of his friends and we sat and waited for Taryn to get there.

Like Greg he hurried and skimmed down to see where he was going as he was reading the call and was a little disappointed to see California since he really wanted to learn a language. Then he got to the part of California Long Beach spanish speaking mission and was really excited. He can't wait to learn spanish better and serve in California. The weather in Long Beach sounds perfect and I as a mother am excited that it won't cost me an arm and a leg to send packages to Taylor. He leaves for the MTC on March 3 and will spend 8 weeks there learning the language. This summer he applied for the regency scholarship and to get it he had to take two on-line spanish classes. What a blessing for him that he has had that head start in learning the language.

His roomate at BYU will be serving in the mission right next to Taylors. His is also a spanish speaking mission. Exciting time ahead for us. Greg gets home January 28 and we will fly Heather and the girls in from Georgia before Taylor leaves so maybe for a few weeks I will have all of them under one roof again.

Final weeks at the cabin

We love and also dread this time of the year. It's nice when all the hunts are over and the ranch seems to shut down and we are the only ones up there. But we dread the thought of closing it up for a few months and not being able to use it. We went out Thursday night and late Friday night Taryn and her friend Trevor came out. After breakfast we bundled up and went for a ride over the loop.

The leaves have all fallen off and everything looks pretty dead but we still think it's beautiful. You get to the top of the mountain and you can see forever. Taryn and Trevor left around 1:00 so Taryn could get back to the Ute's football game. We weren't alone for long, around 3:00 Taylor and four of his roommates and his friend Jenny came up.

Taylor has really enjoyed his roommates and they all get along. His roommate went to Lone Peak but they never hung out until college. It was nice to be able to met them and it's great to know that there are awesome kids out there. Jenny was a trooper coming up with 5 boys. She said she is used to that having 5 brothers and no sisters. We left early the next morning to attend stake conference. They stayed that day and got up early to attend church at Tabiona. they arrived in time but nobody was there. After Taylor told us I remembered that my mom had said they were also having stake conference that weekend.

With the snow coming this weekend me and Steve headed out Wednesday to spend the day. The weather was perfect and we spent a few hours four-wheeling. We found a road that took us through really tall thin pines. It was so beautiful and of course we had left the camera at home. We got alot of stuff put away for the winter weather and before we left Steve had to go on one more ride. I choose to stay at the cabin and stay warm. It was getting around 5:00 and starting to get dark so I went out on our balcony to see if I could hear or see Steve on the four-wheeler. As soon as I stepped out a four-point buck stopped on the road and looked at me. I didn't move and we stopped and looked at each other for awhile and then he turned around and started walking into the yard. I ran downstairs and out to the deck and there in the yard was another four-point buck with about 10 doe. They looked at me for a minute and then one buck went one way with about five doe and the other buck went the other way with about five doe. So cool and of course no camera. Steve was wishing he had stayed home from his ride since he didn't see any wildlife on it. I think winter is here and after Thanksgiving we will have to shut the water down and give the cabin a rest for a few months.

Cave Tubing

We heard from a few friends that when we stopped in Belize we needed to do the cave tubing. Last time we went and saw the ruins so that sounded fun. It was about an 1 1/2 hour bus ride to the river and cave. Belize has alot of poverty and most of the houses were in bad shape. Seeing how most of the world lives really made me appreciate how lucky I am.

The river is a calm one and going through the cave takes about 15 minutes. They give you headlamps to wear so you can see in the dark. Luckily we saw no snakes. That was my biggest fear.

After going through the cave you get to float down the river. Of course we forgot the good dive camera and bought one of those cheap ones on the cruise, so that is the reason for the blurry pictures.
Our dentist told us that his wife got really cold doing this so I brought my short wet suit. The water felt great and I was wishing I had left the wet suit home.

It was a fun excursion. When we got back to where the buses were parked we had lunch in an outside resturant. The food was delicious. It beats shopping in the little tourist shops.