As you all know, we got to go see Ben and Marinda and family. They showed us all sorts of awesome stuff. I apologize that I am only now starteing to share with the fam.

This is us in front of a lake in Switzerland.

Ben and Marinda took us to this cool place in Switzerland where you can walk through these different houses that represent different times and locations in Switzerland. They had a petting zoo too. This is Natalie and Jack in the petting zoo.

Natalie's anxt over goats. . . actually the picture.

Jack playing with the goats - we did have to wait in a whole other line at customs because our children had been to the goat petting zoo in Switzerland.

How'd you like to be buried in this cemetery?! It was so pretty! The Swiss are doing something right. Almost everybody in the cemetery died in their 80's. The cemetery is behind this cool as heck church.

Marinda lead us all on this "danged fool crusade" which involved us renting a "trotty bike" (a scooter with brakes and that's it) and riding it down a path on the mountain. At first I almost aborted mission. It was so steep and wet. But thankfully i stuck it out and this is a picture of Shea ahead of me on the trail. It was one of the most spectacular rides of my life.

This is the imprint of Shea's body on the grass from when he biffed on the Trotty bike. I wish I could have caught it on film. He was okay - just injured pride.

 More to come!

16 AGAIN!!



The Old Geek has made it another one, and thanks to you all for making it such a great birthday. Shirts and Jelly Bellies from Katie's crew, German chocolate and cookies from Ben's gang, movie and candy from Dave's group, a fun phone call from Joe (they're at DisneyWorld this weekend, the luckies!), Killers CD from Steve, a GPS from Mom and you all (another newfangled gadget i'll be discombobulating soon), and GREAT cards from everyone. 




where DOES Katie find these amazing products, inquiring minds want to know . . . .



Still a blow hard, but the targets are getting easier thanks to Mom. Thank you all for a really nice birthday and we hope you are all safe and well. Love, Dad/Gwampa/Pat/the colonel

Israel

Marinda asked that I post about my latest Israel trip. I was able to shepherd one of our Generals around recently. We had one especially great day when we took a helicopter tour around the country. We got to see the border with Syria where the civil war continues. We saw some regime artillery actually fired and dropped into one of the villages. Pretty amazing to see the fighting firsthand. Last time I observed artillery was when I was at Ft. Campbell. We then flew along the Jordan River to the Dead Sea, over Jericho and up to Jerusalem. We made several low passes over Jerusalem. I'll have to post some pics. We landed in Jerusalem in order to attend the opening ceremony of the Holocaust Remembrance Day at Yad Vashem. Before the ceremony, we had time to run down to the Old City. We went through the Armenian quarter and around the southern wall to the tomb of David. Quite a few Orthodox Jews were praying over his grave. Really neat. Then out along the edge of the city, the Mount of Olives is visible with the Garden of Gethsemane just down the hill. The General is an avid Christian and was moved I think to see the Mount of Olives and realize our proximity to Gethsemane. We continued down to the Western Wall of the temple and walked toward where the Holy of Holies used to be (now the Dome of the Rock). The Temple Mount was closed unfortunately We then walked back throughout the Old City, stopping briefly at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Catholics believe Christ was crucified, buried, and resurrected. There was a choir and organ going as mass was ending. We walked some of Via Dolorosa and the "stations of the Cross." We then got back to the hotel and changed into uniform and headed to Yad Vashem. Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Peres both gave speeches and the ceremony. Netanyahu's speech was very interesting. He called on world leaders to pay attention to evil in the world - Iran in particular. The General was on the front row and shook Netanyahu's hand when he came in. I was on the sixth row. The ceremony was outstanding. A violinist played an amazing, moving piece to kick it off. They honored six Holocaust survivors - one for each million killed in the Holocaust. Their stories were incredible. How they suffered and, more significantly how they survived, overcame, and went on to have families and normal lives. To close the ceremony, an Israeli soldier, called the "IDF Chief Cantor" sang a Jewish prayer a cappella. It was fantastic. Amazing experience. The full ceremony is here: Subtitles are in Hebrew, but when they show the Holocaust survival stories later in the ceremony, they are in English, too. Skip ahead to watch. Really well done.

Happy Easter and stuff!

Easter in Virginia

I took way too many pictures and couldn't decide which ones to post, so... yeah. Happy Easter!

I'm just not quite sure what to do with this kid's hair. 

Peter likes to grab and Oakley HATES it when he grabs her or her clothing. 

Oakley wouldn't sit on his lap. Honestly, neither would I. 

Oakley and her friend Grant at our neighborhood Easter egg hunt. He was totally scoping out her candy. Notice that all his eggs are already empty. 

Oakley and her besties. It was ridiculously hard to get them all to pose for a picture. Not even just to pose, but to even be in the same frame. 

Oakley in her sailor dress the Sunday before Easter.

Joe and Ryan

Pictures with the Easter Bunny

Happy Easter!

Per Nancy's request…

They were laughing hysterically at their younger brother 

Because what's not hilarious about this?

 And here's a bonus photo… looks like he's inherited his father's gut and his mother's thighs.  

From Gramma's Fridge

So look who we have added to the pantheon of photos on Gramma's fridge. Looks like Peter isn't missing many meals, eh!

Gwampa's Trip to Utah

This is all I can figure out how to add text--I swear I'm getting WORSE at this stuff! And now they tell us XP is no longer supported and that all us old XP users are going to die of viral infections--well at least we'll know what's going to kill us, I guess. Could be worse. Could be raining.
So I went to Utah to see family and attend a reunion of old Spain Mission geeks from '69-72--it was awesome but I got no photos of the old guys; you wouldn't know them anyway. Note how Natalie and Jack were enjoying the Easter presents Nana (Gramma Shaha) had sent them with her flying boyfriend.



And we got to visit Great-Gramma Shaha who was amazingly with is as always. Natalie is into bandaids as you can tell.




I got to go to Natalie's first soccer game--some of the children actually had an idea what was going on; they were lucky to have such a patient coach and lovingly uncompetitive parents!

Natalie had accumulated so many fuzzies in her awards jar that she got to pick a special activity for Saturday; she chose to go to the new dinosaur museum near the UofU and it was a great place. Even the sauropods were smiling as you can see from the photo.

This was about as close to Gen Conference as I got--Melinda's family were the only ones actually in Sunday dress and I was trying to help contain the chaos to the basement so the others could watch upstairs at Steve and Stacy's pad. I think Ian's takeway from Conference had something to do with Boba Fett bringing down an Empire fighter.

And little Lizzie was charming in her favorite armchair; just so you know my rear end can't fit in the seat of the chair so she's still pretty tiny. It was a GREAT trip and thanks to Great Gramma and Katie and Shea for their hospitality, and to Steve and Stacy for their food and TV access!