Tavin #16 & Torin #3 - 2017

Great days lately!  Loving seeing these grand kids growing up and being so awesome!  Tavin is our oldest grandson.  Torin used to be the youngest (Kai has taken over that spot).  It was fun to celebrate with them.  We love you guys to the moon and back!  Happy birthdays.

Grandma's tree removal party!

We had a freaky little storm that went crazy a few weeks ago.  It went particularly crazy in Grandma Kurtz' neighborhood.  In the process it took out two big, beautiful trees.  Paul thought we could do the job of removal as well as others and get a chainsaw in the process.  And we did do well with a great team of whoever could make it that day.  Thanks to all for your help.  What a great team we were! (We actually worked in the neighbor's yard first getting it cleared before they got home from their vacation.  Moss was there too, but we were too busy to take any pics.)

Good times with Sheryl

(This is a bit after the fact...got busy and forgot to post earlier.) Sheryl has come for two weeks to help with Grandma's recovery.  Every now and then when Grandma has been in the hospital and well taken care of, we have taken Sheryl out for a bit of fun to keep her from going crazy and just to hang out and enjoy her company.  It has been fun to spend the time with her.  One evening we took her up to Veyo Pool/Crawdad Canyon.  She didn't  bring a swimming suit, so we bagged that part, but we went up river to enjoy the scenery and found wonderful raspberries perfect for picking and eating...which we did!  Then we went down stream and clear to the bridge at the road into Veyo.  That was a first for me.  And we cooled off some in the water!  Then we came back and visited/shared pie with Supe.  It was a fun evening!

Bean's #29!

This  was a wonderful day.  We were so happy to be able to spend this time with Bean.  It has been a very long haul for him and us lately and this was finally a day to enjoy and be happy with him.  He is living at Mt. View House in Cedar City right now.  It is a place designed to help people with problems like he has toward a more independent life and promising future.  It is hard for him to be there, to be getting used to meds and so many other changes in his life, but we do feel like it could be the thing that will make a good difference for him.  He is much more open to family right now and it is so good to be able to express our love to him and have him express some back.  We went up to Cedar City and those that could gathered at the park for dinner and celebration.  We pray things can move forward a bit at a time in a positive way for him.  Happy #29 Bean!  We love you more than words can say!  

Here are a few pics of good times past with Bean!  

Beaver/Tushar Car Camp

We had such a beautiful day trip that we decided we needed to go back for an overnighter.  It was wonderful! At first we thought we were going to get rained out, but it stopped just as we got ready to put up camp and didn't rain anymore until the next afternoon.  It was perfect.  The rain had washed away any bugs and the temp was perfect.  We had really good food, took a beautiful walk, saw deer and elk and had a good sleep.  We had good food again for breakfast and saw lots of awesome scenery driving around the next day.  We hiked a little, got hailed on a little, had a great lunch and drove home a different and beautiful route...and then it rained!  This is one of our very favorite camp spots of all time!

More YSA fun - Veyo Pool back to school!

Something really cool - the young man with the hamburger was made an elder a few weeks ago.  He's a bit older and has had a lot of challenges in his life.  So good to see him moving forward!  

We had such a fun FHE at Veyo Pool/Crawdad Canyon with the YSA a couple of weeks ago.  We ate, of course, and then climbed (Supe made that a lot of fun), hunted crawdads, and played watermelon football in the pool!  It was a really great evening!

Mill Flat back packing camp

We have had a much too eventful summer to take a real vacation.  Paul's mom has been in the hospital twice - broken hip and blocked carotid artery in her neck, along with the recoveries.  But we wanted to at least get in a little backpacking trip so Mill Flat it was.  It did not disappoint.  It was beautiful with greenery galore from the good rains this summer and big snows we had last winter.  We feasted on raspberries along the trail.  We had good, lightweight food and got dinner over and into bed before the all night rain started.  We stayed snug and dry in our cozy little tent.  We enjoyed our chipmunk visitors and didn't see any other people.  It was relaxing but a vigorous work out and it was downhill coming out!

We were smiling at the beginning...

...and still smiling at the end!

Family dinner in Enoch

Lou got to hold Kai!

The Randalls finally got their turn to host family dinner in August!  We were going up there to enjoy the cooler weather...and it got a little too cool for the planned dinner at the park.  We ate at the house and then took a walk which turned into a rainy walk!  It was a good time, wet or not.  Thanks for hosting Randalls! It was, as always, good food and the best of company to share it with!

Tavin's I can't wait to eat look!

Picnicking indoor style

One jacket was almost enough along with the tree!

We love our Bean!

I don't think anyone reads this anymore but me, so I'm just going to write here about Bean.  Life has been so hard for him (and us) for the last 10 or so years.  Mental illness has raked him over the coals so terribly.  It has robbed him of his identity, the chance to make the dreams he had for his life a reality, to build relationships of love and trust, the chance to share his talents, his faith in Heavenly Father and so many more things.  My heart aches as I see his heart ache in the times when he does feel some reality and remembers his old life and mourns for what he is missing now.  He has come to blame and distrust us and we have come to wonder about how we have done things wrong that may have made life harder for him.  We had hoped that he could just live out his days with us at least having good food, comfortable shelter and someone to look after him and keep him safe from the bad things and bad people in the world who do not understand and want to take advantage of him and hurt him. Mental illness wastes so many beautiful people's lives.  The words we most often say when trying to figure things out for Bean are, "I don't know."  I know that somewhere in his future in the next life things will be better, but it is a very long, hard road here.  I suppose that with Easter coming, I will think of what the Savior did for Bean...that someday things will be right for Bean and he will have his chance to make the choices that his mind couldn't make here and opportunity to experience the things he missed because of mental illness.  He will have his own mind I will love getting to meet and see the beautiful man he is and hope that he will forgive me and love me in spite of all my mistakes toward him and we will build a new relationship.  I will get to see him find love and a wife and have the chance to work toward all of the wonderful blessings that are mentioned in his patriarchal blessing. All the tears will be wiped away and he will love his Savior and Heavenly Father and know that they love him.  I look forward to those things and so many others that the Savior's atonement will make possible for Bean and all of the other people with mental and physical disabilities that have robbed them here of the blessings that "normal" people take for granted as just having a regular life.  

He put together this funny guy to greet us on April Fool's day!

Funny hair!

Funny shoes!

An real smile on this day!

Golf with the YSA

Paul and I got called to work in the YSA 3rd Ward several months ago.  It has been a fun adventure for us.  These are some wonderful young people who live in a hard time and are at a hard time in their lives.  We feel blessed to be there and try to offer what service and support we can to help them along their way.  In some ways it is kind of a little mission for us and in some ways it feels like a party/cooking/eating calling!  Whatever it is, we hope we can serve well.  I could put something up here every week, but I mostly want this to be about family, but some of these young people are feeling like family, so once in a while I will put up something about it here.  We had a really fun, try something new FHE last Monday evening.  For summer we have a once a month combined with other wards FHE and this time it was at a beautiful golf resort...and I tried a putting green for the first time in my life.  I also hit a couple on the driving range.  And we just had a fun time hanging out and ...you guessed it, eating!