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Christmas 2008
Dear friends and family,
This has been a really great year for us. Despite escalating gas prices, we did a lot of traveling this year, and have seen some really fun places. Maureen spent 5 days in Newfoundland in February, and Layne spent a week in Switzerland in November, albeit mostly working learning new equipment for the press, but got to take a couple of side trips. We spent a long weekend in Arlington, Texas, with Jenner and his family in September; then spent almost a week in Georgia with Mark, with visits to Ft. Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, and a trip to Orlando to visit Mark’s girlfriend, Rebecca–with a day at DisneyWorld, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios.
In between those trips, we have continued our new hobby (or near obsession) with Geocaching. At the end of last year, in our first five months of caching we had found 27 caches. By the end of the year we will have over 800!! We have taken several weekend trips to Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and Nevada. We made one day trip of 700 miles. By the end of the year we will have found a cache in every county in Utah, a separate cache in every county seat in Utah, and one on each of the 48 pages of the DeLorme Utah Atlas. We traveled on lots of roads we had never been on; saw a 5-way-stop-sign intersection in the little town of Elmo, Utah; the burned Dewey Bridge over the Colorado River; visited Paris, Idaho on our 35th anniversay; sank hip deep in snow and ankle deep in mud in Wyoming; found our 500th find on a natural bridge arch south of Vernal; walked 10 miles around downtown Salt Lake City; read lots of historical markers, and stopped lots of interesting places we would otherwise never have seen. We sent out trackable “travel bugs” special coins that went from Utah to Idaho, Washington, Texas, California, Pennsylvania, Maine, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, Montana, New York, and Alaska; and to England, Newfoundland, Norway, the Canary Islands, Germany, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic.
We cached with Jenner’s three boys in Arlington, and with Mark in Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida. We spent a day with Russell and Mark when he visited in July. We took Russell, Sherrie, and their four kids on various day trips to Nevada and parts of Utah. The grandkids all have a personalized “travel bug” they chose. It is fun to take the kids because of the looks on their faces when they find the “treasure” and get to swap “prizes” from Nana and Poppa with something from the cache. Russell’s daughter Mary is a natural and finds a lot of caches. Recently David went with us for the day, and twice when we were just about ready to give up and have to resign ourselves to a “Did Not Find,” he found the caches.
Apart from that we stay busy with our jobs. Layne is still with the Church Printing Center. They purchased a new binder/trimmer from a company in Switzerland and he was chosen to be one of 6 employees to go for a week’s training. He still does some Civil War era re-enactment events. Maureen still does medical transcription, but not just for St. Mark’s Hospital. The HCA Mountain Division hospitals combined their transcription services in June. She took a little pay cut, but the work is steady and good. She still participates in the Murray Concert Band, played in the pit orchestra for “Bye Bye Birdie” this summer, and played in the Payson City Band for their summer concerts. In July we went on a youth handcart trek. Layne set up his “pioneer” era tent and outfit. We helped with the cooking, and Maureen walked two days with the youth for about 12 miles. The boys are all doing well. We enjoy being with them when we can. Glenn lives here - we see him occasionally ! !
We are glad for the Christmas season to remind us of our blessings, and the many gifts God has given us as a family. Our love to all.
Layne & Maureen
