Pioneer Loved Ones

Lately I've been spending quite a bit of time thinking about our family and loved ones. This happens to me once in a while. Of course I think about my parents and grandparents that I remember and look forward to being re-united with some day. And there are those friends and family that are still living, that I don't see much of, that I think about being with someday too. But lately I've been thinking more about relatives and what I call "Kindred Spirit Friends" that were special to us on the other side of the veil. Ever since our return from our back east Church History trip, and our experience as chaperone's for our Stake Youth Conference on the "Muddy River Mission" I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about some of our family heritage. I have especially been thinking about little baby Electa Roberts and her mother Mary. It is very humbling for me to think about their courage and dedication to what they believed in. They sacrificed so much for their beliefs. Brigham Young, who was a good friend of theirs, I'm sure, said "The test of a mans faith was his willingness to uproot himself and his family, time and time again, and start life anew where he is needed." They certainly did it. They left their home in Provo when they were called to come to the Muddy River to help the Indians. It must have been so hard. I live here now all these years later and I know that this part of the world can be wicked. I love it here and feel a very special spirit here. That is why we are here. Mary came here without the conveniences that we have. She brought her children here and even lost little baby Electa here. When I think about it, I feel so much love for her. The other day as I was cruising along on my very nice bike, on a nice paved road, I decided to stop and visit the old pioneer cemetery where Electa is probably resting. I feel so close to her and look forward to giving her a hug when I am re-united with her on the other side. I can't help but think that she is near to me and helping me on the other side. How must Mary have felt when Brigham Young came and told them they could leave. She was probably so happy to be going back to Provo but also sad to know she was leaving a part of her behind. Well, now I am here and close to her lost baby and I love her. Isn't that a strange thing. When Jay and I decided to move here with our family, we had a very spiritual experience. We knew we were suppose to be here. We didn't know why, but we also felt some spirits on the other side that were very near to us and directing us. As I think about it now, I wonder if it was Benjamin and Mary Roberts and their family. I guess we will find out some day. It is also interesting to me that Benjamin was Grandpa Vogels grandfather and Grandpa Vogel spent his last days here. I do know that I have a great love for these past pioneers that they are a part of me. We are a part of their family and they are a part of ours. I won't forget them and I think they are aware of us too.

After my bike ride I decided I would go back and take a few pictures. As I sat on the hill of that old pioneer cemetery, looking over the valley, I wondered how much different it must have been for Mary looking over the same valley. When I decided it was time to ride home, I looked across the valley to where my home is. The steeple to the church, across from my home, looked so tiny and far away. When I got on my racer bike on the paved road it took me only about 25 minutes to ride home. It was probably about 90 degrees out by that time of the morning. When Mary headed back North, it probably took them at least one full day just to get to where I live. Hopefully it wasn't a hot summer day and they had some decent water to drink.

Who is the Happy one?

Last week we went on our first family vacation for the summer. I don't know for sure if most would consider it a vacation, but we sure came home happy and tired.

We left Logandale on Tuesday afternoon and our first stop was Ivins, Utah for Erin's viola lesson. We then continued heading North bound to Annabella, to drop Erin off to stay with Chris, Jodi and their kids. My my, Erin sure loves and misses those adorable, active, wonderful kids. She promised Jodi she would do all the dishes she could, and assist with chores if she could just go and spend a little time with them. It was very late by the time we arrived and Jay and I hit the sack for our early journey to Delta. Did I mention we picked Leslie up from her home in Mesquite to go with us? It's always a very interesting and an eventful time when Jay and Leslie get together. When I pray for patience I think Heavenly Father answers my prayers by having me practice my patience skills when those two are together. I know they really do love each other but they definitely have a hard time showing it. Anyway, back to the vacation. Wednesday morning we headed to Delta to help Dallas and Tim move to Salt Lake City. All of their personal belongings have been stored in our trailer for two months and now the time had finally arrived for them to move to their University of Utah destination. We had promised them we would help them move and we were so glad we were not making a Eastern trek to Virginia for Pharmacy school. We spent Wednesday night at the Loveless house with Marie. We couldn't resist staying up late to spend time with her. The next morning we got up early and headed to SLC. When we arrived at their student housing complex we played with the cute kids and helped them unload their belongings and played with the kids some more. Dallas and Tim just kept thanking us and thanking us for helping them move. Yes, it was a lot of work. Especially for us old folks with all our aches and pains. Poor Jay is still recuperating from a bout of Tennis Elbow (also know as tendonitis of the elbow) This is from all that hammering on my wonderful new chicken coop.

I L OVE YOU JAY! Thank you for building me the best chicken coop ever. As I was saying, does this sound like a fun vacation? Well, as I was unloading all of those boxes and boxes in the heat of the day, I had a big smile on my face. Why? Because indead there is nothing in life that can make a person happier than to be able to help someone else out. As I thought about this great lesson I remembered what Mom told me in one of those tender last moments of her life. I pondered her thoughts on this subject. I remember her telling me about staying in Grandma and Grandpa Vogels winter home in Desert Hot Springs while she was recieving her cancer treatments. She was by herself and had to drive herself into Indio for her treatments. I'm sure she was very tired, especially on her drive home, after the treatments. There was a nice retired lady that lived near by. She came to Mom and asked her if she could drive her to her doctor apointments and treatments and assist her. Mom did not want to be a burden on anyone and declined her offer. This kind woman then pleaded with Mom to please let her help her. You see, her and her husband lived an easy life filled with taking it easy, golfing and doing anything they desired to do. But she was not happy. She was missing out on what really makes a person happy. That is to be able to help someone else. Mom told me it was so hard for her to be a burden but she decided to let this woman help her, and she was indead a great help to Mom. So who really was the happy one. Of course, the one giving service. Thank you Dallas and Tim for helping us to have a very happy vacation.

We then took Leslie to see her Sleeping disorder doctor in SLC. I love Dr. Farney. He is so smart and down to earth. He has every right to be a snooty doctor with the knowledge he has but he is so kind and genuine. He always treats me like a normal person and doesn't act like he is ten times smarted than me when he talks to me, even though I know he is in fact at least ten times smarter than me. Being a nationally know sleeping disorder specialist, we are very lucky to be one of his patients. I wonder if he is the way he is because he knows how to get a good nights rest. We then continued our journey South. Back to Annabella. It is always so fun to go spend time with Chris, Jodi and their family. Now, here is what we did there. Besides goofing off in their garden and grooming horses, dogs and not ourselves we went on a great bike ride. We loaded up all their bikes, my bike and a few others and headed to big rock candy mountain. There we unloaded our bikes and when on this really cool bike trail through the canyon. It was so beautiful and fun. After our bike journey, Jay took Levi and Heston fishing. They caught a whole slew of fish. Jay and I didn't want to start smelling like rotten fish so we headed back home. (with the fish) We got home late Saturday night. Jay had bisopric meeting at 6:00 am the next morning. After attending 2 hours of our 3 hour meeting we decided we better go home and get some rest. We were so tired we could barely walk accross the street and up the driveway to our home. When we got home we got undressed, pulled the covers down, turned on the fan and fell asleep for 2 and 1/2 hours. Boy, were we tired but happy.

Well, whats a blog without a picture. I took all of these pictures while I was flying down the trail on my bike. Now that's action.

Nauvoo, Niagra and Kirkland

The entertainment was great!

Jay loved the Oxen!

Rhonda at the Yearsleys! This is the family that took our relative, Benjamin Morgan Roberts, an orphan, Grandpa Vogels grandpa, in. I didn't even know it when I was there. Cool story. Thanks to sister Paula it was waiting for me upon my arrival home.

I loved this picture of the Kirkland Temple in the Visitors center in Old Kirkland. The Spirit was very strong there for me.

Niagra Falls was beautiful and very wet.

Dreams Do Come True

Many years ago my parents took me on a vacation back east to see church history sites. At the time I was about 15 years of age. Growing up in the church I always heard all of the stories about Joseph Smith and the early pioneers. It was just a part of my life. I didn't really have too much appreciations for all that our early ancestors did for us. I do remember starting seminary that next fall. As we talked and learned about the different things that occurred with the restoration I could visualize the events better since I had recently visited there. As I grew and read and my testimony developed, I gained more and more appreciation for our past. Then as I became a parent, I even appreciated what the early saints went through more. I still always remembered the sites my parents took me to see. I would think back and try to remember it all with the dream of someday going back and seeing it again. Over the years, I have told Jay about my dream to go back and tried to explain what it was like. He thought it would be more enjoyable to spend the money on a fishing trip to Alaska or something else of the sorts. I really didn't think we would ever make the trip. Then the unexpected happened. Each year the graduating seniors make a trip back east to the church history sites and they had extra seats for chaperons that needed to be filled. Sweet Jay, knowing that this has always been a dream for me decided we would fill some of their empty seats and go along with them. We thought Erin might like to go along in that she would be graduating early form High School next year and wouldn't have the opportunity to go. So we signed up. Much to our amazement, Erin decided she really didn't want to go. She felt like she would rather attend girls camp. We thought she was going nuts so we then decided to take Leslie in her place. BRAVE! Leslie was not able to go with her graduating class because we didn't dare send her on her own. She has always wanted to go, so this was her chance. We had a wonderful trip. I was amazed at how much the church has done to develop the sites. There were beautiful visitors centers at each place we visited. We truly sensed the sacredness of many of the places we visited. I will forever be grateful for the opportunity to visit and learn of the sacrifice's of many of my past ancestors and better see and understand our history. I am also so grateful for my testimony. It is strong and still growing. I am so grateful for it. And finally I am especially grateful for such a sweet husband who always seems to make all of my dreams come true.
Here are some beautiful sites we visited. I took about 600 pictures and I couldn't even delete hardly any of them. They were all so pretty. It's a good thing I like green because I sure saw a lot of it.

E-I-E-I-O

Young McRhonda had a farm. E-I-E-I-O. And on her farm she has new goats. E-I-E-I-O.

And man alive, thay are cute. I don't think there is anything cuter than new kid goats. Betsy had her twins at about 3:00 in the afternoon yesterday. She dropped them on her own without any trouble this time. What a relief. We were a little concerned since we nearly lost her in childbirth last summer. No problem this time though. And her babies are beautiful. She had one girl and one boy. They both have very dark heads. I like them that way. They are so pretty and I think they show at the fair better too. (Personal preference) We haven't named them yet. If anyone wants to put their two bits in, we are open to ideas.

What is it about Babies?

Yesterday morning I arose early to take our cute last schnauzer puppy out to potty. When I opened the door I was surprised to see Baylee laying there on the patio right in front of the door with two little puppies nuzzled up to her, nursing. Wow! What a surprise. I immediatly went back into the house and woke Jay up to tell him congradulations. He now was the papa of two new cute little mutts. Hopefully he will realize that these adorable babies will be his responsibility. We suspected Baylee would be having little ones about a week ago when Leslie came home and was giving Baylee a bath and informed me that she had boobs. We then gave her the summer hair buzz, and sure enough, she not only had boobs but there was milk in them to boot. I was in complete shock and denial and thinking maybe her hormones were just messed up because of the schnauzer puppies. Then I thought maybe if I ignored her it would just go away. Maybe she would have puppies out in the desert in the middle of the night and they would all be lost and the coyotes would get them. Maybe, Jay could put them in a gunnie sack and drop them in the Muddy river. Oh, I am so cruel. I really don't know how she possible could have gotten herself in this motherly way. She was in heat the same time as Lucy. That means she should have had puppies about 6 weeks ago, according to my calculations. Baylee is a very large hairy dog. She very well could have had 20 puppies. Man, this has been stressful to me. What was I going to do with all these puppy muts. I informed Jay that "Baylee was really Jay and Leslies idea of a dog." I invisioned myself sitting in a grocery store parking lot with a gigantic cardboard box full of big hairy dogs and a free puppy sign for the rest of the summer or maybe even my life. Jay informed me that maybe he could use them for marketing and put a big Falcon Ridge Realty sign on the box too. I think I will make him sit with the dogs. I'm sure in his mind he will finagle a way to designate this job to me though. He is very good at doing that. In fact, I would have to say he is a pro. Anyway, back to the puppies. I sat there on our bed trying to convince Jay to go see his new babies. Soon I got to thinking about what a sweet dog Baylee is. I thought of the two cute babies wiggling around on that cold, or maybe hot cement and decided to go get them a big blanket to lay on. That was the least I could do. When I went back outside, there was another puppy. Wow! As I took another look, they melted my heart. They were adorable babies. Very fancy looking black and white little things with great big noses, just like their Mom. Baylee looked up at me, smiling and proud. Her big/little tail was just a waggin. I went back in our bedroom and told Jay he had three babies now and when would he like to do their tails and dew claws? He asked me , "How big are they?" "Will I have to use a chain saw?" Well, I went and got the wading pool out, which I was just getting ready to put back in storage from the schnauzers, and got it all set up in the air-conditioned tool room with a big soft balnket. I wanted Baylee and her new little ones to be comfortable. Oh so so cute. Two little girls, and one little boy. They have such beautiful markings too. The little boy looks just like his mother. Thank goodness all went well and the coyotes didn't get them. So much for the gunnie sack idea.

So here is the question. "What is it about babies that melt a persons heart? " "How can one not bond with a new little one straight from heaven?" "Birth truly is a miricle! " "A gift from our Father in Heaven." "It doesn't matter if we are pure bred or mutts, all little spirits are special." "Even dog spirits."