September 9th, 2001 was the first meeting of Alpine church. It was held in a Jr. High school auditorium. The past few years we have had services in the terrace playhouse. This morning just a little over six years from when we started we held our first meeting in our own church building.

It was exciting to walk through the facility, the smell of fresh paint, walls yet to be marred by kids in the children’s church, the nervousness of making sure I was not the first one to spill coffee in the new sanctuary. You could feel the excitement of the congregation. Some of the detail work has yet to be completed and the church offices are not finished but the important stuff is done.

We attended the early service but I did not get there early enough to get the back row, I had to sit one row up from the back. But even that did not dampen my mood, Bryan (senior pastor) and Steve (associate pastor) gave a wonderful sermon on something. I am just not sure what, but it was good.


The bride and I have not been real faithful in our attendance for the past year or so. A lot of it has been health related and some has been laziness. I do believe that after my upcoming procedures and recovery I will be a little more faithful. At least that is what the bride tells me. Okay I am just kidding on that one. I do what to be a little more faithful in my attendance. But it is a very nice Sunday and San Diego just scored on their opening drive.


The couple in the picture is Bryan and his bride Tracy.

This has been a some what stressful day. I won’t go into all the details or how much time I have spent on the phone. It seems that it is time to bring mom up for San Diego for good. Mom will be 87 this coming March and she has lived alone for 35 years. She has been in the same house for 50 years this coming November. But we all (Me, the bride, my sister, my kids) believe that it is time. I was ready to head down to California in the morning, but it seems that I can wait until the 15th of November when she comes up for Thanksgiving. Mom will be able to help me mend from up coming surgeries. I am having three procedures scheduled between 5 Nov and 13 Nov.
(This is another blog)

Mom always has a great time while she is up here. When she is relocated she will be surrounded by family, one of her two kids (me) two of her three grandkids, and all three of her great grandkids. Mom is very resistant to the move as of today. But I believe that she will warm up to it as time moves on. I know for a fact that she will be very happy once she is settled in. The basement will be made in to her living quarters, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and living room. She will spend the evenings with the bride and I. Until the basement is finished she will have one of the spare bedrooms and the guest bath. I told my sister that mom will not have to worry about all the stuff she worries about: house insurance, groceries, utilities, water, nothing. There are still some road blocks in the future so I will pray this works out for the best.

I am back

Headed for the airport. I'll be gone most of the week. See ya

I had four trees taken out of the backyard yesterday. The tree’s roots were starting to cause some damage and the trees put down an unbelievable amount of leaves every fall.

I called Ernesto’s tree service, good choice. Ernesto and his brother showed up early yesterday morning. It appears they were one man short of a full crew. Ernesto explained one guy did not show up and he offered me a job right then and there. I rushed in and told the bride I had found my calling and I knew what I was going to do after I retired. Those dreams went up in flames in just seconds.

I managed to stay almost out of the way for the rest of the day. I would pull a couple of branches toward the chipper shedder and watched these guys attack my trees with what can only described a work ethic that would wake me up from a dead sleep in a cold sweat. I really believe I could have never hung with these guys even in my younger days. I had made some plans in my head on how I would have taken down the trees. It could have been summed up as renting cherry picker and whacking away with a chain saw. Not these guys, They showed a great deal experience and knowledge, one climbed each tree and took each branch off as he went up. I watched as he would grab the branches swing them behind his back to make sure each one landed in my backyard. The other would line them up to feed into the shredder. There were ropes and pulleys and things hooked to the trunk of one of trees to help do something. Man it was great. It was non stop from the time they got there until they left. Other the wood I requested they leave there was nothing left except foot prints. They wood they left was cut up into bite size chucks that I can split and use in the fire place next year. Well worth the money.

The bride and I, plus another couple went out for a wonderful dinner last night. We took the gondola to the top of Snow Basin (local ski resort) for a fine dinning buffet. It is a 20 minute gondola ride to the top of the mountain and on top is the Needles lodge. The views are just great and I almost took some pictures. We were seated by a window, the bride and I took the seats where our backs were more towards the window. We had been up just last week and our friends had not been there before. After we were seated the feeding frenzy soon began. First trip I took started me off with Mussels on the half shell, shrimp with cocktail sauce, prime rib, lamb, white Sea bass, And some other stuff. The sea bass is cooked for you as you wait, Fantastic. Last week they had sword fish which was equally as good. My second trip involved more sea bass and lobster ravioli, very good stuff. I really wanted a third trip to the buffet line but I had to save some room for the dessert table. Okay I had no more room but I was not going to let that stop me. The young lady that was waiting our table clearing the used plates and keeping the drinks filled told me “make me proud” as I advanced on the desserts. Strawberries and pineapple dipped in chocolate, cinnamon dough balls covered with caramel sauce, key lime custard in individual curst, baked apples, and chocolate everywhere. I forget if I only went up once or twice. I did not want to look like oinker so I sat at the table and picked off the brides plate. Kellie (the other lady with us) and I finished off dinner with a glass of wine. A pleasant trip back done the mountain and the evening was all but done. At the bottom of the lift Kellie picked up a job application for the up coming ski season. She retired from government work a few years ago and a little extra income is always nice.

We are having a small dinner party this evening, Kellie her husband Allan, Kellie’s sister Lonnie and her husband Terry, John and Adrianna, and Debbie and Dave. The bride has turkey in the oven and baked an angel food cake this morning. The other lady’s are bringing the side dishes. I am looking forward to the fellowship. We always seem to have a good time and laugh until it hurts.

Don't this make you feel safer on the streets of Utah. Utah is one of seven states that makes it easy for illegal immigrants to drive but really does not require that we know who they are. You will see in the article that the ‘privilege card” allows the illegal to drive but can not be used for identification. I would bet that none of the 62 applicants ( number from artical)for the privilege cards that used the same address will have insurance. This is wrong on so many levels

I have so much I have wanted to blog about. Things that are going on in the government that makes me just shake my head and wonder why. But I have had blogger’s block. I will try to break out this weekend and pour my wit and wisdom into my blog. I will admit that I have never before but there is always a first time.

I went fishing yesterday with Nate. We went to Willard bay and had set there about and hour. Had a couple of bites and I had landed a catfish worthy of eating. Then Nate started to snivel about not being able to listen to “car talk” (funny talk radio show), and it being slow fishing. So we packed it in and went to catch carp on the Bear River. The carp we had caught last week were in the smoker so I decided not to keep any I caught this time until I determined if they were any good. We fished a couple of places on the river and caught a number of carp. Plus we could listen to car talk so Nate was happy.

Dropped Nate off at his place and headed home. Dumped all my stuff went out to check on the fish. I figured they had a couple hours more until they were done. I was wrong. They were done and looking and tasting pretty good. I love to pick at the fish as I take them out of the smoker, the dogs like it also. I was pulling the racks out putting the fish on a plate nibbling on some fish and giving small tid bits to the dogs. I though I had only put in three racks of fish put I pulled the top rack (number four) out and it was full of fish. It was dry and brittle. That is weird because the top rack is the furthest away from the heat and always the moistest. I picked at some, and it being so brittle it broke off chucks and hit the ground. The dogs were on it. I turned the rack and saw the skin of the fish and it was trout. The rack had been in the smoker since I had done my last batch of fish. I was spitting fish out of and pushing the dogs away from the fish on the ground. I figure it was not going to hurt me but why take a chance. Smoking fish s a way to preserver the meat, the smoker had sat in the basement which is a cool and it would have been fine. Just drier then most
The bride and I are heading out the door for church so I will talk with you all at a later date.