Helping the tall folk

Audrey is really getting to be a big help around the house. What fun to see the grandkids learn to talk and act like they own the world! She helped Reed and Peter move the piano from the living room back to the dining room.

The Steve and Kelly Deming cousins visit

Jake, Jessica, Johnathan and Jana brought Mommy and Daddy Deming from Oregon to swim in the Austin pool. What a wonderful family they are! Steve was here for a Dental convention and Kelly had a reunion with some sisters and her parents from Arizona. We were glad to get to have them for just a few short hours on June 15th and 16th.

Cabin R and R at last

Oops! Uploaded the wrong image. This is a new wildflower I had never seen up on the mountain, NOT the picture of the Lions Club Breakfast we attended after watching the balloon show!

Not to be outdone by son Nathan and his family (who have attended every community event anywhere near Boise over the last several weeks), Victor, Adele, Becky and Audrey rose with the dawn at Mammoth Creek and drove into Panguitch, Utah so we could witness the Hot Air Balloon rise. What an amazing event to see the ever-changing kalaidescope of color as the balloons rise and lower and shift positions! I took an insane number of pictures but just couldn't satisfy the feeling that I should take more!

We found the Wilsons!! Because Victor is still recuperating from the heart surgery we have been better at the recreation part of our cabin visit. Decided to finally drive the old Hatch Road that cuts off of Mammoth Creek road, and decided to try to find Richard and Carolyn Wilson - good friends from our Chile Mission. It took some sleuthing and a lot of driving, but we finally arrived at what others we asked called Wilson Canyon. Drove right through the "Private Property" gate and asked at one of the cluster of cabins back in the shelter of the red cliffs. Sure enough, they were out baling hay! What hardy folk to have cleared off extra acreage and BEGUN farming in earnest at the age the rest of us want to just lie around! They are great people and live in a beautiful valley. We wish them well with this first crop and are glad we got to visit again.

Spring is glorious up on Cedar Mountain. We really needed this getaway time. It was pure inspiration to place the hummingbird feeder right outside my kitchen window. Although keeping the little critters fed is seriously reducing the sugar in our food storage, watching them has given me such joy! They are totally unimpressed by the sounds I make on the other side of the glass and just go about the business of drinking their own body weight throughout the day and diving around like little kamekazee pilots!

CUTE!!

When Grandpa naps on the couch and snores a little, Audrey LOVES to laugh and go stick her face by his face then climb up beside him. She's not there for long, of course, but we were able to catch them both being cute. Napping is good for post operative heart patients. Victor is recovering very well.

Laying in the Pasta !

Thatsa' really nice-a pasta!

See these two young people? This is Lucille and Reed Jacobson. They are the young couple from California who live at the other end of our ground floor here at the Fogg house and who just fit nicely into our family unit.

They are svelt and thin and young, right???? Look especially at that innocent, lean look on Reed's face! I have finally met my match! My great downfall is pasta. But I bet Reed would eat pasta three times a day if Lucille didn't force a little cereal and milk down him in the morning! Two or three times a week I make up a big mess of pottage and we just nibble away at it!

All of that is really just a lead in so that I could post this cute picture of Peter, Aly, Jill and Victor the day Victor took me seriously about the pasta sale at Smith's!

"My Turn on Earth"

I am SO not good at posting things in order. But wanted to memorialize the cast of "My Turn on Earth" - the musical that Victor directed (with the able assistance of daughter Becky who also understudied Rachaels role of Nancy for two performances!!). This was one talented group of young people. It didn't end up making the rounds of the Stake as well as we had hoped but we were very grateful that Victor was able to make an appearance for closing night - just one week after Heart Bypass surgery! It was heartwarming to see the cast swarm around him, surprised and glad to see him home. We are still humming tunes from the show at our house!

We visit the South and congratulate Nathan's completion of Law School

Just wanted you to know that in addition to the misfortune of Victor's emergency surgery we actually DID get to see some wonderful things on our trip to the South. Spent a week in Savannah, GA and Charleston, SC area. Visited Fort Sumter, a few historic plantations, some antebellum homes/museums. Spent LOTS of money at every chocolate factory we could find, visited the ocean and Hilton Head, SC and treated ourselves to trolley and horse and buggy tours of the various cities. Had some wonderful meals (which Adele promptly enjoyed trying to duplicate back home in Vegas. My shrimp and grits with Tasso Gravy turned out quite tasty!) We enjoyed having a weekend with Nathan, Colleen and the girls before everyone went their separate ways. Colleen and the girls to California, then to Vegas before heading to Idaho...Nathan back to finish moving the household and packing the UHaul. We picked him up on May 15th, helped with the last cleaning touches, quickly borrowed a cap and gown from a Law School buddy and snapped a few pictures before dropping him off at the Airport to fly to Boise to start the Bar Review Course.

We are happy they have reached this milestone and wish them the best at both passing the Bar and finding a job in Boise or the southern Idaho corridor somewhere. They seem to really be liking Boise, so with a baby due in August we hope they do NOT have move again except to a permanent location!

Kentucky Bluegrass Area

One of the many horse farms through the Bluegrass area of Kentucky (between Louisville and Frankfort). The most amazing miles of equisitely cared-for fenced pastures, often with ONE horse in each section. We didn't have time to visit but there is a retirement farm for former Derby winners now past their prime. Something very elegant and peaceful about it all.

Shaker Village - Harrodsburg, Kentucky

Slate fences typical to Indiana & Kentucky. This one is in the Shaker Village, but I would pass many of them on my way to the University of Indiana each morning in Bloomington. (It was near this fence in fact thatVictor confessed to me that he was having some strange pains he couldn't seem to relieve with position changes or deep breathing, etc.)

Typical sleeping quarters in the village.

Shaker Village

The East Family dwelling. Each home had the capacity for 100 people. Men and women lived in separate quarters. They believed in celibacy so if you were married before joining the society you would renounce your marriage and no longer live as man and wife. There were, of course, no children born in such a society, but many came with family and they also adopted (legally) many children who were orphaned or abandoned. They were cared for by the community.

The broom maker at Shaker Village in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. The Shakers invented the machine that flatten and fans the brooms into the shape we are used to using (as opposed to a rounded broom)

This beautiful woman explained the dances and music in the Shaker Meeting Houses (the movements that got them the names Shakers to begin with). I loved this village. I felt such a respect for their efforts to have all things in common and to worship the Lord in the very act of work.

Are these the quintessential "Southern" pictures, or what? Mansions, greenery everywhere and great, frothy ribbons of Spanish Moss (which to anyone uninformed is neither moss nor Spanish).

The only Tea Plantation in the USA - South Carolina

This is the combination of 32 plants that make up their famous brand of tea. The machine is a one-of-a-kind invention that skims the top of the bushes to harvest the blend of leaves which grow back 6 weeks later for another harvest. We learned that the difference between black teas and green teas is really a matter of time drying! Very interesting.

Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House in Savannah, Georgia. Two hour wait, 14 people per table...but, oh my, what a table!! Everyone recommended this location for a true Southern Cooking experience! There were 24 different dishes!!!!!

Nathan, Colleen, Amaya and Noelle (and almost-here baby Tara) at Fort Pulaski, Georgia

Victor's surprise Quadruple Bypass !!

We were merrily en route from Jacksonville, Florida with son Nathan's U-Haul (headed to Idaho) planning to spontaneously stop and sightsee wherever and whenever the desire hit us. We had spent a delightful Sunday with a childhood friend in Knoxville, Tennessee and the following day spent several hours at the Shaker Village in Harrodsburg, Ky. We were a day behind to make it to Bloomington, Indiana where I was going to show Victor where I had gone to school for my MLS and say hi to a couple of friends who still live there.
We neared Bloomington by 11 p.m. Victor decided that several episodes of puzzling chest and arm pain was worth checking out, so we went straight to the Emergency room of the new Monroe Hospital. Long story short: Three hospitals later and several doctors we found ourselves in Indianapolis with Victor undergoing emergency Quadruple Bypass surgery (Friday May 22nd). There was no heart attack, no permanent heart damage, just a super concern because he has the family history, diabetes and (unbeknownst to us) a year or more of high blood pressure which contributed to the blockages in the arteries.
He came through it wonderfully. The first days of each succeeding piece of worse news and the surgery itself was not fun or easy. This is a very serious thing that can make a patient look flattened and totally helpless. But the years of walking had done him well and he progressed out of the critical care unit and amazed all the nurses with his strength and ability to get up and be about the business of carrying on. Things went so well that we were released several days earlier than what we were first expecting and were finally allowed to fly back to Vegas. He got home in time to attend the final performance of his production of "My Turn on Earth" and enjoy the wedding reception the following night of the son of some dear friends in the ward.
We acknowledge the Lord's tender care in our behalf through this difficult experience. Adele spent many nights curled up in a chair in the waiting room, or on cots in Victor's room. But we were in a one of the best Cardiac Hospitals in the Country under the care of an exhuberant and caring surgeon. MANY, MANY prayers were offered in our behalf and we both felt that sustaining influence. There is much to be grateful for.
And now.....it is on to the business of learning to deal with the new, improved version of Victor Austin!!!!