Ok, it took me two weeks... but here it is!

Elder and Sister Nicolds. They served here as
FM missionaries. We loved them. They were
part of our family while we were here! It was so
hard to see them go home!


This is the Martin Harris Home. (More about it in
the letter.) It looks so pretty with all the summer
flowers.


This is the sign as you go into Phelps... (not related to
WW Phelps). Now I ask you... doesn't this make you
want to see what it is like? What on earth is a
Sauerkraut Festival?!?


My Sauerkraut hot dog! It was yummy! I know that
you would all have liked one, too!


They really did have a Sauerkraut Baked Goods Sale!
Who would have thought??? You really couldn't taste
the Sauerkraut... Doug says he could, but you really
couldn't!


Here are the contestants for the cabbage head contest.
It was so funny. I am sure that everyone wondered
about us two old fools laughing and taking pictures, but
we had fun!


Second Place! This was Doug's favorite. If you can't
tell, it is suppose to be an elephant! I love the nose, tusks,
and floppy ears!


First Place at the Sauerkraut Festival! What's up
Doc?? We think that this was a children's contest, but
it might not have been... We are at least pretending
that it is!


Sister Wilson and I in her backyard. She grows a beautiful
vegetable and flower garden... you can see some of it in the
background. Their large backyard was beautiful... right in
the middle of some of their apple orchards!


Shawn, Tawna and girls in front of our apartment.
(Too bad Jeff and Laura couldn't have been here at
the same time to see them!) They are a sweet family
and I am sure that their ward and stake are HAPPY
to have them!


Two little angels! We had such a fun time watching
Finding Nemo! Doug even watched it with us... and
laughed! It was fun to be around two little girls that
were just one year younger than our granddaughters!
Now we can't wait to see them, too!


Sidney turned two and we had a little party for her!
It was fun to have little kids around... they are really
cute kids and such good little girls, too. It was fun to
have them come!


There have been a million sacadas that have all come
out of their "shell" this week at the PW Farm. This one
is just starting to "crack" open. You can see the crack
in the middle of it's back.


Once the bug climbs out of the "shell" it has to sit there
for a while to dry. It's wings have to get hard so it can
fly away. The only thing about them that we know is
that they make a terrible racket!!! High pitched noise...
that is really loud!


This is what is left of the "shell" when it is dry and
flys away. It says hooked to the tree for a while and
then the it falls off or the wind blows it off.


We had a couple of old fashioned haystacks on the
JS Farm... I say had because one night someone threw
a bottle of gas on one of them and burned it to the ground!


In the morning there was nothing left but a pile of
ashes! We sure hope that this is not the start of someone
trying to see how far they can go without being caught!

August 19, 2006
Well we have had a few things happen during the last few weeks. I have felt much better so I guess we decided to "get out" more! This last week my cardiologist told me that I wouldn’t need to come back to see him unless I had problems or felt that I needed to… He is having me stay with my Cardiac Rehab and feels like the people there keep a close eye on me, so if I needing anything they will let him know! It made me really happy… I felt like I had been released from a "Ball and Chain". I guess that is because I thought that this day was going to come 2 months ago! Anyway, I am really starting to feel "normal" again and it is wonderful. (I almost hate to say stuff like that because it usually means that something else is going to go wrong… but it is not going to this time!)

We had to say good-bye to some of our favorite missionaries two weeks ago. The Nicolds from Luna, New Mexico went home. They were such humble and sweet missionaries. They were assigned to our ward in Lyons and they did so much to help the ward. It was sad for everyone to see them go. The Nicolds lived in one of the apartments in the Martin Harris Home. It is a beautiful home made of River Rock. It actually was a frame house at first. Two or three years after Martin Harris sold it to someone else, it burned to the ground. They built this house (on the same foundation) at that time. (The river rock buildings were made by some of the English and/or Irish immigrants that helped dig the Erie Canal. They are considered to be very historic buildings since there are not many of them and were only made for a short period of time.) …Anyway, when missionaries go home, it feels like you are saying good-bye to family! It is hard to see them go!

Ever time we go to the Peter Whitmer Farm, we pass a sign that reads: "Welcome to Phelps… first weekend in August, Sauerkraut Festival." With a welcome like that you can imagine that we have been waiting for August all year! Really, we have!!! So we went to the Sauerkraut Festival and had to see what it was all about. Most of it was just a carnival with rides and some booths with homemade things for sale, but there were a few highlights that I have to share with you! First, you have to eat something with sauerkraut on it. I had a wonderful Hot Dog with Kraut! Doug wouldn’t eat sauerkraut so he had a barbecue sandwich. Mine was much better… his tasted like "Vick’s Vapor Rub" mixed with burnt tires (I am not kidding! We both identified both of those tastes!!!). Yuck!

Second, they had a Bake sale. Everything there had to have sauerkraut in it. There were cookies, cakes, pies, brownies, etc. We bought some cookies and then decided to buy a Sauerkraut Brownie for all of the Senior Missionaries. It was a blast! When we delivered them the missionaries didn’t know if we were kidding or not about the sauerkraut! They didn’t know if they should eat them or not either. But I have to say… I think that all of them gave them a try. And all of the ones we heard from said that they were just like a "normal brownie". They were. But we figured that you had to be able to say you had a Sauerkraut Brownie while you were in New York… Where else on earth could you find one!?!?

Third, the funniest part of the festival was the "cabbage head decorating contest"! There were some pretty good heads. The enclosed pictures just don’t give you the true feeling of "funny" that they inspired in the two of us! We laughed a lot (again, when you are a missionary some of the stupidest things make you laugh, so you may not be able to gage things on our sense of humor anymore!) Some of the heads of cabbage were the biggest cabbages we had ever seen, too. I bet some were 18-24 inches across! (not around) There were some Big Cabbages. That may have added to the funniness of it, too, I don’t know… We were sure that you would like to see some of the winners, so we included the pictures on the blog.

We also went to a ward High Priest Group Party. It was held at the Wilson’s home. The church is run here much like it is run everywhere… Even after they have been announcing that we were going to have a party, Sister Wilson only found out the day off the party that it was going to be at her house! They are apple farmers and they have a large, beautiful backyard. If you don’t include the four sets of missionaries that came, or the bishop, Wilsons, or High Priest Group Leader… There were four people who came from the ward! I guess it was a good thing that we all came! It was a nice night, but there were no games or anything prepared so when people were through eating and visiting with their table, they were pretty much ready to go home. It was a nice drive (50 minutes) to their house, though.

Last Sunday, one of Jeff’s best friends from Weber came to visit us. He is in Medical School at Michigan and seems to love it there. It was fun to see them. We had Sunday dinner together and since it was their daughter, Sidney’s, birthday we had a little party with them. It was great to have kids here. That is something that we don’t get very often. Doug and I watched "Finding Nemo" with the two little girls, while their parents went to see the Joseph Smith Movie. It wasn’t quite like having our very own grandkids, but it was pretty darn close! We love Shawn and his family! (The missionary rule that you cannot hold kids is one of the hardest rules of a mission.) It was nice to have some "little kiddies" to be with! They were really little darlings, too! How FUN!

At the Peter Whitmer Farm we had an infestation of sacadas. (I don't know how to spell it!) Doug got a series of pictures of one coming out of it "shell" (which looks just like a bug anyway!) They make a very loud noise… Doug can’t hear it though. It is just the wrong pitch for him to hear… He is a lucky guy because it is very annoying!

We also had an act of vandalism this week at the Joseph Smith Farm. Someone threw a bottle filled with gas from the road onto one of our haystacks. It burned it to the ground! It makes me sick to think that there are people that have such meanness in them. We are hoping that whoever it was doesn’t get more bold and attack the homes there on the farm. It would be awful… you could never replace the Frame home. It has made it since 1822 when Alvin started building it.

We also went to Niagara Falls this last Wednesday. The pictures that we took there don’t do it justice either. It is hard to imagine just how much water is going over the falls. 10% of the water goes over the American Falls… 90% of the water goes over Horseshoe Falls. (They are divided by a tiny island called Goat Island) A statistic that boggles the mind is… One fifth of all the fresh water in the world goes over Niagara Falls!!! Wow! A fun statistic for the little kids is… More than 1,000,000 bathtubs could be filled to overflowing every second from water that goes over the falls! It was absolutely beautiful. For two kids from Utah, which is pretty dry, seeing that much water "left running" was pretty grand! I hope that you all get to come and see it someday! We don’t have a river that even begins to compare to the Niagara River, let alone the falls!

We also got to go with the Sister Missionaries on a teaching visit. We met Robin and Pedro. They were great and we are picking them up for church tomorrow. They are looking for truth so hopefully they will read the Book of Mormon and ask the Lord to know of it’s truthfulness. We hope that we can tell you about their baptism before we come home!

Missionary work is moving forward. I feel like we are no longer on the sidelines. It is great! We hope to make the most of the 2 ½ months that we have left! Time is moving faster than we are! We love you all! Have a great week! dnd

PS... I will enclude the pictures from Niagara Falls and tell you about Sunday's church meeting with Robin and Pedro next week! :)