The End of an Era

Here we are in the senior year of our last child. Who would have thought that this day would ever happen? Both Mrs. Weatherwax and I were feeling the closure of a large part of our lives at the last 2 local band competitions this year.

The show was about "the seasons" of the year. The grand finale was "Summertime" which is my favorite. I taped it but forgot that they were wearing their rain coats that night. I tried several times to download the video but am giving up. sorry.

The Great Outdoors

Nets has told me emphatically whenever I talk about how beautiful Utah is that she never did anything fun outdoors while she lived here. So, for the first time since we were married, we are both in Utah for more than a couple days and we decided to take advantage of a long weekend and do some hiking.

We started out with Stewart Falls. After getting Nettie mad at me for driving aimlessly throughout Provo Canyon to find the trailhead, we got lucky by finding Three Sisters road and a trail that appeared to head in the direction of a waterfall. It was a short, but beautiful hike. We got wet, ate lunch and took some pictures.
Annette was so inspired with the falls that when I mentioned the prospect of hiking Mt. Timpanogos, she decided we should do it, in spite the 8 hours it would take.

For those of you who don't recall, Nets and I had done a long hike before in Switzerland and it had gone terribly awry, so I was a bit nervous to try again. But encouraged by her optimism, we left for American Fork Canyon at 9:30am. I had gotten better directions this time as to not incur Annette's wrath.
It was a great hike, sunny day, even the foot of snow we came across about 2 hours into the hike couldn't dampen our spirits. At about four and a half hours and 6 miles in, we reached the first summit, where you can look down on the valley and Utah lake. Wow. Breath-taking.
We were about 45 minutes still from the peak and the way was much more difficult; steeper climbs, higher ledges and a slipperier path. Initially, Nets wanted to turn back, but of course, I goaded her on... bad idea. Within 20 mins I had her frustrated and scared to tears, so we appreciated the view from where we were and started the hike down.

Unfortunately, I did forget about was how well the sun reflects off snow and how white I am (how could I forget). Having worn a beanie all day, I ended up with a burn from the eyebrows down with a still shiny white forehead. Sweetness.

Tongan Life

Life in Tonga is all work, dances, running and earthquakes. Yeah, my first earthquake in Tonga was on Sunday and it was small, just rattled a few things. It was fun, I haven’t been in one since my mission. This week I am at another conference, but this one is in English-thank goodness. When they are in Tongan, I am so tired by the end of the day just to understand about 50% of the message. It is a lot of new vocab since it is health related. The foto is of me helping at the field day, I taught the kids aerobics and helped with the games. In true Tongan fashion, on Monday we got in one car to go to school and work and it was out of gas. So, they siphoned the gas out of the truck and put it in the other car cause it already had some gas in it. Then while we were driving, the tire was kind of flat so we pull over to fill it. Yeah, I was really late to work, but told my boss and he said, typical life in Tonga. The other funny thing was at our conference, there is a sign near the toilets which says, "Please keep the toilets clean for everyday use." What they are really saying is that they don't ever clean the toilets, so don't make them dirty. Scary huh! Well, That's Tonga!

Mom's 40 year High School Reunion

Last Saturday I went to the Union High 40th reunion. First we went to Tosh's band competition so we got to the reunion late. It was fun to see my old "Cronies" and to remember our crazy high school lives. The 2 girls on my right and left and I went to the Sweetheart swirl as freshmen together. We all asked guys we didn't know and we were all sorry by the end of the night. I ran into my biggest junior high crush, a fantastic jazz pianist who plays at Noto's every Friday night. He invited us to come hear him play. It was really funny when someone looked at their watch and said "my, it's after midnight". Someone else said "I'm always in bed by now" and someone else quipped "yeah, it's just about time for the first pee". Of course everyone laughed at this point because we are all stumbling to the bathroom one or two times a night at our age. I told this story at work and everyone over 50 broke into laughter and the rest just looked confused. They'll find out. Anyway, thanks to Annette for helping me to figure out how to post. Comments?

Yellow life or death?

Well, the fleabites are on their way out after 2 weeks and most of the major itching has subsided, Hallelujah!!! I still have many bumps, but I think that most went away pretty fast cause I didn’t itch them and Mom’s diligent prayers. It’s in times like this that I know why I wasn’t sent down during Pioneer times!!!

The fun new item in my life is my yellow burn cream from Pakistan. I’m pretty sure that it is helping and the iodine is probably keeping it clean. About half my clothing is covered in yellow! It may be hard to believe, but the burn is a lot better than it was!

Anyway, life is good, I started working at the ministry of health last Monday and spent the day helping make a TV broadcast about Rheumatic Fever. Basically I didn’t do much but I add in my two sense once and a while. Anyway, it will be good for my resume at least.This is for Taki-I also went to a primary school and taught the kids a song in Tongan about how to brush their teeth. Then we all brushed our teeth and did a fluoride rinse. I'd upload the video of the song, but it is long. I also played games with the kids-few adults play with kids and so they loved it!

Well, if you didn’t know that I went to see Mone, but I did. I just wanted to make sure. He still loves me, but not like before. Its been good to finally deal with it all and close this chapter of my life. I’m starting to see that I am better off, but it is taking time. Thanks for your prayers!

Funny story is that one of the cousins Kenny drove me and Nisi to the women’s broadcast and then the car died and so we had to try to jump it, but no one had cables, so someone took out their battery and we finally got it started. We drove about 30 ft and it died again. I think it was out of gas. I just laughed and said, “this is Tonga.” They were not too excited to walk the 4 miles home. Oh, and last Friday I went to a dance and it was fun to just get out there and let loose. That’s the news from the Island!

I'm in Kiwi Land!!

For those of you uncultured folks, which would be me and most of our family, New Zealand is home of the Kiwi bird. Anyway, here are some pictures of my time here. The first is Huana falls which was gorgeous and a very short hike. The next is the from the Hamilton flower gardens. It was cool, they had little sections for many countires in the world. The one in the foto is our heritage-Japan. The last is the man made lake at the top of Huana Regoinal park. The picture of the keep of the Dam sign was taken just before I hopped the fence and ran down the dam. I was a bit lost and not sure how to get back, so I took the sure way back which was down the dam!
The next picture is of me hiking a volcano called Rangitoto. It was a good hike and took about 3 hours but at the top you had a great view of Auckland and the harbor. It was gorgeous! The other crazy people are the mom and daughter that I stay with and my good friend Sungu from Tonga.

The last picture is the countryside that I drove through to get to the Temple in Hamilton. It doesn't even do it justice, it was amazing! I also went to some glow worm caves which rocked, but we couldn't take fotos so I will have to show you those later. We road a boat and looked up to see the worms which looked like a ceiling full of stars or little green christmas lights. Other than that, just museums, eats, lots of volleyball in the backyard and a ton of flea bites. Yeah, they got fleas, which I will be trying to kill tomorrow. I should take a foto of my body, I look like I have chicken pox! Anway, much love from the lovin' NZ but itchy girl Lori!!

The Big Catch

So we ventured out once again, and this time found ourselves along the banks of the beautiful Liberty Reservoir. On Labor Day we decided to take a little fishing trip w/ our new fishing poles from Walmart. Connie was pretty excited to slay some fish with her new pink pole.


We walked and walked, and w/ each turn around the bend I told Connie we'd just walk a little further. Finally we came to our primetime location and started catching 'em like crazy right off the bat. Connie caught the first, and her reaction was priceless. I was lucky enough to catch a bit of it on film (see bottom). We caught a handful of pan fish, and had loads of fun.


The only keeper we caught was reeled in by Connie. She had caught a fish on her pole and brought it to me to take off. I handed her my pole and began taking off the fish when I heard another scream. She had caught another on my pole and it turned out to be a nice size perch. Even though we only had one keeper we had to take it home to eat. Later on the next week we went fishing one more time where I caught a sweet 16 inch Largemouth.