A New Kind of Blog

So what do you do, when you can't leave your snow cave.  Well, you do what any intelligent bear would do, hunker down for the duration, snack on any loose berries and bugs you unearth, and then sleep.  Did I say sleep?!   Actually, everything was true, except for sleeping and the bugs--though I did scarf up a lot of popcorn and cookies!
 Ever since January 4, I've been working non stop on a blog site featuring the Hole-in-the-Rock pioneers.

I was called to be the history specialist for our Stake Youth Trek in June 2-4.  It is interesting how the Lord taps you on the shoulder giving you something to do, that you are prepared to reject, and then once you say, "Yes, I'll do it."  Everything just falls into place. 

When we went to meet with the Stake President, I told Steve, whatever they asked us to do, he would have to do it, because I already felt too busy with my other callings.  We are Young Single Adult Reps for our ward and the college, and doing a monthly bulletin, getting it delivered, and then fellowshipping the dorm kids, is pretty much a weekly job.  Add to that visiting teaching, and doing other fellowshipping in the ward and helping with Addiction Recovery Classes, we both keep busy.  

   But when Pres. Redd explained the need, I couldn't refuse.  I love San Juan County History and feel passionately that our youth needs to learn from the past, and honor the legacy of these early pioneers, so of course I said "Yes".  Rather than just prepare a sheet of paper with pioneer information on it, I wanted to create a site where future trekers could also glean information.  There is also a great need to find additional information about these people, and I am praying that the leaders and youth will help discover these untold stories. 

  I've had a lot of fun being detective the past 3 weeks and have been able to find significant information on several families, primarily because family genealogists are putting their ancestral stories on the Web.  I've found some amazing stories and photos.  We even have family connections with the Hole-in-the-Rock. Lynn's wife, Roseanne Reeves Keeler is related to the Lymans.  Her dad is a direct descendant of Platte DeAlton Lyman.  Then Rob married Kathryn Redd who is a descendant of Lemuel Haridson Redd, one of the scouts for the trek.

One of my best detective episodes concerned Samuel Cox, his wife and little daughter.  Basically all we knew was that he was a fiddle player for the pioneers.  First, I was able to find birth and death dates and full names for them on Family Search. Then believe it or not, I put the daughter's name into a google search, and it found this wonderful family genealogy site, that had the Cox family story, plus a photo of the Sarah as an adult!  I am so thankful for all the family historians out there who are using technology to share their records, histories, and photos.  The Kumen Jones family from Blanding is another one who has taken their records to the Web, and have much useful information for others to use.  The great thing about Kumen is that he wrote so many wonderful things about other people!  Maybe some of your ancestors will be listed there!

Over 100 of the 250 pioneers who came through Hole-in-the-Rock were children.  So I am also creating a companion site just for them called Children of the Rock. I'm even thinking of doing one with poetry about the Hole in the Rock, called Hard Rock Poetry...is that pushing it too far!?  Well, it's too late now, it's already done.

Fasting and Prayers are answered with SNOW and more SNOW

When you live in the desert, it's just like being an Idaho dry farmer, you are always praying for moisture, and this winter our prayers were answered.  We have had a record setting winter this year.  


The LDS Stakes in Blanding fasted for moisture on Dec. 4, and we've had snow on the ground ever since.  The first two pictures were taken Dec. 8.  Steve has done a lot more shoveling since then (as in driveways, walks, and chicken coop roof .  We have had a few wonderful sky blue days between storms when it truly looked like a winter wonderland.

    We slipped up to SLC for a few days between storms for a family party the "northern" kids had organized.  It was lots of fun, with crafts, good food, and a pinata.  There were 27 of us there.  It was wonderful to have so many of us together again.

This was taken the night of our 42nd Anniversary, so we didn't go anywhere to celebrate!  The weather was very cold for 3 weeks, seldom getting above freezing, so the snow just piled up higher and higher.

Anthony and Ashley came for visits both before and after Christmas, and the kids had fun sleigh riding, and playing in the snow, as did the "big" kids.  Grandma just took photos. It was a beautiful day, right after a storm, and lots of Blanding people were up at the 4th Reservoir the day after Christmas.  Rob, Kathryn, and Ethan joined us for a wild rollicking day with tubes and sleighs.

President's Day weekend (Jan. 15-17), Amy and Andrew's family came down and Steve, Andrew, Rob and kids went ice fishing several times.  They caught enough to eat for one of the meals while they were here.  It was wonderful having them come (and very entertaining). We celebrated Mattea's birthday while they were here.  She is five now.

Finally in January it started to warm up a bit.  I've lost track of the number of storms, but they've been big ones, with lots of white fluffy stuff--at least until last week's when it was white heavy, wet snow. It was a huge storm and very wet.  It started the 17th and snowed until the 19th. 

I think we got about 40" during the two days it stormed.  I feel like I've been in a snow cave, especially now that the roof is sending down avalanches and partially covering the windows in the kitchen. 

It is forecast to storm again tonight with up to 8 more inches.  Stay tuned for more "weather" from Blanding, one of the few "dry" towns in Utah! (What do forcasters know--it hardly snowed at all last night, but did rain.)