Backyard orchard and garden shots

Our garden is progressing.  We just picked our entire crop of apricots.  Frost got most of the crop.  The nectarines and peaches look quite promising.  Our rhubarb plant gets bigger every year.  Our tomato plants are healthy and have lots of  blossoms and marble sized fruit (or should I say, vegetables?).  We have a row each of chard and of kohlrabi.

Art by Brian

Wendy's son Brian is featured right now with a display of his art at the BYU Museum of Art.  He has a couple of pieces there, which are video art, a new form.  The one is a 4 minute piece which shows old trees, barren in winter and apparently enveloped in fog, with a series of evolving images of these naked trees.  Interestingly, about half way through, a squirrel leaps between the branches.  The second piece takes about 7 minutes and is accompanied by some somber music, and combines flocks of birds whirling around some city buildings and then one of the building collapses in a big cloud of dust and the birds are seen evacuating the area.  It has the feel of real art.  My pictures do not do this justice, of course.

Family connections

We spent most all of yesterday at things related the marriage of Wendy’s nephew Danny Johnson–marriage in the Salt Lake Temple, luncheon at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, reception in the evening at an old restored home in South Jordan–and found several connections to our Lewis family. 

To start, Danny is a younger brother of Emily and Elizabeth Johnson, who David knew at Taylorsville HS.  They live in the old Bennion area of Taylorsville City.  We like Danny a lot.  He is a RM, has just completed a masters degree at the U in exercise physiology, and is a friendly and solid guy.

His new wife, Kelsie Haymond, also went to school at Taylorsville HS graduating in 2006, so is a little younger than any of our family.  She served a mission in the Philippines, and is also a UofU graduate.  She is the youngest of a family of seven, so has older siblings who attended THS.  Their names: Kim, Alex, Melonie, Spencer, Adam, and Lori.  Early on this family was in Richard McDougal’s stake (Taylorsville West), but for a number of years more recently have lived in the Bennion Stake a little west of Redwood Road about 6000 South.  We wonder if any of our kids knew any of these Haymonds at THS?

We were interested to learn that Kelsie’s parents are currently serving as couple missionaries in the Salt Lake Central Mission, living at home of course.  We heard a little of the work and progress of this mission from them, but they had not heard of our Elder Ryan Chandler.  They are serving in what they called the Taylorsville-Bennion district, and he has served his entire mission to the east of the Jordan River in Midvale and Murray.

We found an even more interesting connection at the reception.  President and Sister Moffet, Elder Chandler’s mission leaders, were there, probably at the invitation of this, one of their senior missionary couples.  Wendy was acquainted with them, at least with sister Moffet, from living in the same stake many years ago.  We sat with them for a few minutes enjoying our Leatherby’s sundaes.  President Moffet said that Elder Chandler was a very strong missionary and doing a great job, currently serving as a trainer to a new elder.  Coincidently, he told us that he had plans to visit with these elders later this very evening.  It would be interesting to know the details of that visit.  I said that we really enjoyed Ryan’s letters home, and that he had the very interesting practice after he reported on the events of the week, to have a second section of his letter each week where he preached the Gospel to the family.  President Moffet said humorously, “Well, you probably need it.”