Lillywhite Family Letter Submission for Dec 07 (some duplication with last post)

We had a great time at the River seeing everybody. Thanks Ed and Kim! We would have liked to see Aron and Cheryl, though.
Ailsa loves her adorable Lillywhite/Hoke/Porter cousins and swears she is going to try to get down to Utah County to visit with them from time to time.
We enjoyed the beautiful river and its quieting influence. It was especially nice in the late evening, when the sun is setting down- river and everything gets calm. I caught Ed out there one evening taking it in. We enjoyed sitting and chatting with Wade about the Gospel. Laney enjoyed "fishing" with a hook that was big enough to catch a shark. I enjoyed a couple of swings at golf balls and managed to hit one across the river. (This is from someone who has held a golf club maybe four times and most recently "stroked out" (more than 10 strokes) on a hole on a Golf simulator.I tried setting a new personal best on my bike. I was doing a 10 mile sprint and the goal was to break 23 MPH I only did slightly better than 22. I've done better than that in the summer on a longer ride.
We enjoyed going to see Enchanted with almost all of the family. We enjoyed shooting the guns (Tanner was well behaved and a good shot.) Thanks again Ed for getting our Explorer unstuck! Don't worry about the taillight. I got a new one on eBay for $28.90 and it is already in place. I had a fun time building a retaining wall with Sean and Stuart and Clayton. Well, it was really two retaining lumps. But, it looks real good. We enjoyed watching "She's the Man" with everybody Wednesday night. After that we were hardly to be found during the evenings because the kids tricked us into watching the series "Firefly." And most of all we had some really good food (chocolate pie) and got to see all of the cute nieces and nephews again.
On the way back we stopped briefly at Mountain Meadows just north of Saint George a ways. It was very nice. And of course we stopped in Orem for Krispy Kreme donuts.

Thanksgiving Vacation 2007 - River Trip

Last Tuesday night after Jensen got home from her film class at SLCC, we all loaded into the car and headed to Saint George to begin our Thanksgiving vacation. We arrived in 3:45 driving time. In the morning we drove together most of the way with Grandma and Grandpa and Hanna and Katie in grandpa's car.

We arrived at Hotel Hoke about 2pm. Shortly after arriving I went for a shortish ride on my bike. I had the longer crankset on and the Kneesaver pedal extender device on the right side. It was very hard for me to clip in. I think from walking in the gravel. I should probably not do that again. Almost halfway into my ride the right pedal backed out almost all of the way and unfortunately messed up the threads in the crank. I managed to get it back in using the allen wrench on the end of the pedal.


In the morning I went for a ride also. Just as I was parking the car a man turned hs car around and parked behind me. I could see he was dressed in workout gear and wanted to talk. He gave me his card and invited me to ride with him and some friends. I had been wanting to try a 10 mile TT to see if I could get over 23 MPH. This is what I was trying Thanksgiving morning. I didn't quite make it, could only manage a 22 MPH average. I guess I'm in a lot better shape in the summer.

I helped grandma make the chocolate pies for Thanksgiving and then helped Stuart and Sean build small retaining walls for Ed on either side of some steps coming up from his beach. I felt like Stuart and Sean needed to lead on this project so I just kinda helped out where I could see it needed and tried to anticipate their moves.

Friday morning I met with Mark Paterson and his friends Chad and Dave for a ride out to the Havasu dam and back. We stopped at a very nice little cafe a friend of theirs runs 5 miles outside of town. We rode at a pretty good clip. We were pacing for a while and were doing great. Dave needed us to slow down some and the pacing stopped. These were very nice people to ride with.

After returning we decided to go shooting. I got the Explorer stuck on a rock. So we had Ed come pull us off with his jeep. Unfortunately the Explorer rolled into his Jeep and we broke a taillight. We had lots of fun shooting and I shot a hole in a 12 gauge shotgun shell at 25 yards with the revolver.



The whole family went to the movies that afternoon. We went with those watching Enchanted. Mark Paterson and his wife and daughter were there at the same showing. So they got to meet some more of us. On the way home we got pulled over by the local constabulary on account of the broken taillight. Family passing in other cars were concerned that he might find the firearms that were still in the back of the Explorer. He was very friendly and didn't write me up. I think the two broken pieces of taillight sitting on my bumper helped convince him that my story was true, we had just broken it earlier in the day.

We spent most of our nights with the big kids watching and enjoying immensely "Firefly."

We left town on Saturday right after BYU beat the U in their football game. For some time Lenore has been wanting to visit mountain meadows. So we made a small trip through there on the way home.

For the most part our trip was very enjoyable. We still have problems with Laney getting bored in the car and not knowing what is appropriate behavior for interacting with her older sisters.


Laney "fishing" off the dock. She had a HUGE hook on the line.

The Smuths (Brogue)

The Joseph Fielding Smith family reunion was on Monday the 12th. It was fairly enjoyable. The last few years they seem to have learned that it is best to keep the meeting to 1 hour. Elder Ballard came in a sat right in front of us next to uncle Spencer. Then when Janet came down after she gave the opening prayer, he moved to the other side of Spencer so she could sit next to her husband. He ended up sitting between Ailsa and Spencer.

The moderator complained that we only ever hang out with and talk to the immediate cousins, so she did that silly new age thing where you take a minute or two to introduce yourself to your neighbor. I took the opportunity to speak briefly with Elder Ballard. He is descended from Edna. I mentioned his Conference talk where he noted that the Ballards were converted by Joseph Kimber in Thatcham England and told him Ailsa had attended Kimber Academy.

Lenore and I were praying that Ailsa wouldn't say anything inappropriate. On our way home we expressed our gratitude to Ailsa that she had behaved herself. She said, "Oh, is that who that was? I thought he looked kinda familiar."

Not Oakley Rodeo

We had our annual Bishop's retreat the second weekend in Novemeber. Rather than go to the Sorenson cabin near Oakley, the Stake Presidency put us up in the Marriot Hotel downtown and treated us like kings. We ate lots of good food and spent a very nice night in the Hotel. President Daw and his wife had a wonderful suite on the 15th floor. We ate at the Elevations restaurant twice, had room service for breakfast with their very yummy house granola.

We toured the Church History museum and then the Tabernacle, got to see some areas underground that not many are shown. And, we had a very nice instructional/testimony meeting at the end, right before lunch at the Lion House. Above is a picture from our Hotel room, looking right through where the old mall used to be.