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We had a fun trip this week.  We asked Betty 73, and Lemmie 74, to go on a fall drive and have lunch at 32 mile. The sisters are a little hesitant to go off the main road alone, so this was a real treat.   We had lunch and then decided to drive up Kelsaw and look at the leaves.  They were beautiful.  We stopped at a bridge, where they had filmed White Fang and got out to walk around.  Dondaivd when down to the river and saw the Coho’s spawning and came back to tell us. This river is not the big major one, but a smaller, Idaho- like river.   We had our poles in the car, so we asked the ladies if they wanted to go fishing.   They were like a couple of kids.  Lemmie pulled off her shoes and socks and wadded into the river up to her knees with a net trying to get some fish.  I was worried she would fall down; because, she isn’t extremely stable on flat ground.  She didn’t catch any, but had fun.  She took a huge staff-type stick and kept hitting the water to agitate the fish.  When fish spawn, they don’t necessarily feed, but will strike at something that they feel is threatening.  Betty went down river and wadded in only a little ways and did catch a female Coho who had just finished laying her eggs.  Betty is the one who was raised in Haines, and as a child she had caught fish with her hands.  She did use a net this time.I caught two Coho’s.  One about 15 lbs.  It was really fun. Dondavid wasn’t so lucky this time, but a week ago he caught two fish and I didn’t, so we are even. I let Lemmie borrow my pole because I had my limit.  I had to teach her how to cast and then I begin to wonder if she was ever going to return the pole. When we finished fishing, the ladies gathered mushrooms, and berries, and we finally headed home about 4:30.  Everyone was so tired they just fell in bed and slept like logs.  Betty has told everyone about the trip.  Seeing how happy these ladies were  is what makes missions worthwhile.  It is so often the little things that bring joy into other’s lives. 

Dondavid has been working on Lemmie’s pick-up the rest of the week, and so I have had a little time to catch up on house things.  We seem to keep busy.  People are beginning to ask when we will be leaving.  I don’t know if they are tired of us and ready to have us go, or if they will miss us.  I actually do not feel as trunky now as I did in the July.  It helps to be busy.  I have been teaching a lot in Relief Society lately, and we are giving temple preparation lessons to our new family.  It will be nice to only teach the temple prep class this week.    I am looking forward to conference.  It seems like we just had conference.  We have a ‘linger-longer” lunch after the first session of conference and just visit which is fun.

Fall isn’t as pretty here this year.  The leaves don’t have the brilliant color, and they kind of turn brown and fall off really fast.  I guess we aren’t going to have a long Indian Summer.  Snow is predicted for the 7^th of October.  I hope they are wrong.  It is still in the fifties but is supposed to drop to mid forties next week.

Well that is about all in Haines.  I don’t know what you are doing for Christmas Holidays, but we sure would like to see anyone who comes up our way.  I could always do Christmas dinner.  I think I will have time to pull that off when we get home.  Besides I have presents (if I can find them). I know Ed, Russ, Warren, and Amber,(you will be in Rexburg, right? Or are you doing Christmas at home yet?) should be around so we can all get together to eat and play.   We will probably travel the end of Jan to help/visit those who live in warmer places—Troy, Brent, Teresa, Shaun—and then be home when the weather turns nicer in the spring.

 We will leave here Dec 10 by Ferry to Bellingham.  It takes 4 nights and 3 days to do that, then we will drive to Boise (Dec 14 may 15), stop and see Amber (unless you are already in Rexburg) and my sister, stop in Blanding to see Diana and Merlin and be home around Dec 18.  So that is our life schedule at that point.  We are looking forward to seeing everyone.  Hope you have a Happy Day!

Love all of you,

Mom

Hi

  Thanks for sending the number.  They had a question about a prescription we were trying to renew.

   Sounds like you've been super busy!  Glad you finally got to go celebrate Ryan's birthday!  It's always fun, even if it's late!   Glad you're not trying to sing, too!  It takes time, even if it's enjoyable.  My voice has sure gotten crappy, I guess because of allergies or just getting old. 

   I'm still working on Lemmie's truck, still waiting for the rest of the J-channel.  It takes 2 1/2 weeks to get anything.  You order it, they send it to Seattle who takes three days to process it, they put it on a barge and it takes another week to get it here.  If she'd let me do it in brown, they carry it.  But green, not.  I thought maybe Home Depot in Juneau might carry green like they do in IF, but nope, just brown.  I've got most of the other stuff done, insulation in, inside done, doors and knobs on.  Extended the mirrors, fixed the passenger door so it will open from the outside.  Re-hung and rewired the taillights so they both work now.  Cut the big welded brackets off the back so I can make steps for it.  Still need to figure out what I'm going to do there.  I put steps on the cab so she can get in now.  Should be able to finish it up in a couple of days when the channel gets here.  I'm going to change the oil on it this afternoon and pump up the tires.  She still is trying to find some stock rims for it, it has fancy aluminum ones on it that are too big and it binds when you turn very sharp.  Wish I had the set from out in the back yard here, but sure aren't going to ship them up for her!  I'll be dang glad when it's done, but she keeps finding more stuff she wants me to do for it.  She wanted a back-up camera on it, but the one she got doesn't work.  It's for a car and has a transmitter that's supposed to mount in the trunk.  When I hooked it up it just gave a crummy picture on the monitor that you could hardly see.  Guess it doesn't work good trying to transmit the length of the truck through the steel box.  Oh, well.  Now she wants me to mount some of her used kitchen cabinets in it so she can pack stuff in it to go camping!  It was origionally supposed to be just a box so bears couldn't get into the garbage.  She's got about $1000 into it, but says it's still cheaper than buying a camper for it.  Hey, she's 75!  How much is she going to use it?

    We took her and Betty for a fall drive up Kelsaw road where we went gold panning with Alex while you were here. We stopped on that bridge to look at the water, and the Coho were running, so we got our fishing poles out to try our luck.  I caught a couple of smaller ones, only about 7-10 lbs, and mom caught a lunker that weighed 25.  She was pretty excited!  We threw back a couple of little dolly vardens, kept a brookie that weighted about a pound for Lemmie.  We also caught a dog salmon and ate it for dinner, but the meat is kind of mushy, so won't keep any more of those.  We haven't eaten the big one yet, cut it into steaks to freeze.  I think we'll try for some more of those, they're dang fun to catch!  Also caught a sockeye, but haven't tried it yet either.  Wish you could come up now!  If we'd tried to net them we could have caught 50.  They don't take the lures very good, it took us about two hours to catch the ones we got.  Betty caught one coho, but it was kind of mottled  as it had already spawned.  She said she would can it and it would be fine.  Lemmy and Betty loved being out, they don't go out much by themselves.  They're kind of wary about driving into the bush by themselves, afraid if they have car trouble they won't be able to get out.  They were like a couple of school girls, went wading in the water, and laughed and giggled a lot.  It was fun.  Guess that's why we're here.  The leaves are all changing, a lot are falling off.  The Devil's Club is all yellow with red berries, the Alders are golden, the fireweed is red, it's really nice.  I don't think it's as bright as it was last year, but it's still really nice.

    Well, I guess I'd better go get busy.  Sure love to hear from you and hear how you're doing.  Hope you have a great weekend!  Go do something fun!

   Love, Dad