The latest news!

I am not sure where to start and because of this I have put off adding a new post for over a month now. 

Life is pleasant here in the valley. I have taken the time to recharge my spiritual batteries and look after the family. It is a welcome change of pace. I haven't jumped into volunteering in the community yet. It will come in time. We are loving the fact that we now live down the street from Drew's Sister Lara and her awesome hubby Jer! A weekend in August was spent at Grampa Wayne's and Grandma Vonnie's with most of Drew's siblings! We are closer to both sides of the family and took advantage of the long weekend in October and made the journey to Lethbridge for Thanksgiving with my family! It was wonderful! We do miss our former home and dear friends back on the island. We all have had moments of sadness of the people and things like smoked/candy/jerky/bacon salmon, ocean beaches, tide changes, gymnastics, many many many birds, walking to church, fog, and even political views that we no longer see or hear but commit to memory. 

We have taken the opportunity to do a little exploring and I know the guys are looking forward to playing in the snow. It has been fun watching the valley move into Autumn with all the lovely coloured leaves and we get excited as we observe the snow line creeping down the mountainside as we get closer to Winter. We have hiked in the alpine, swam in the lake, walked along the old rail line trail, traveled to Spokane for a Temple trip, played board games, dipped in the Hot Springs, been to Cranbrook for church conferences for youth and family, played volleyball in Trail, watched a couple of movies and can hardly wait for Carter's return. 

It sure is nice hearing Drew play piano or harmonica at home. We purchased a used violin for Alick and in the new year we hope there will be a spot for him to take lessons with an amazing teacher that comes to Silverton once a week from Nelson.  Drew, Hyrum and I joined the community choir! We are having a great time learning new songs and getting to know a few folks in the valley. People come from Hills, Silverton, Red Mountain and New Denver to sing together. There must be about 50 of us. The guys are singing Tenor and I am singing Second Soprano. We are being asked to memorize the music and there are 12 songs. Hyrum's fave is Mumford and Sons Winter Winds. The concert will be held on the 2nd Friday of December! There will be a Branch Christmas night of Music in Nelson on Sat the 14th of December. The Branch kindly changed the date from Friday to Sat so we could participate. We will sing Sally Deford's "Baby in a Manger" again this year. I think this will be the 3rd time our family has sung it. I think it is becoming a new tradition in our family. We are enjoying the return to using and developing our musical talents. In October there was Branch Conference. It was lovely to hear from all the members of the Stake Presidency and the Relief Society Presidency. I felt I was blessed by their presence and testimonies. I sang The Olive Tree song and they were so happy to have had a special musical number a part of their meeting. I prayed before singing that the congregation would feel the beautiful message of the song. The lovely part of the performing was having such an accomplished pianist to accompany me. We both felt it an honour to perform together. :D I have learned there are a number of people in the branch who sing so it will be lovely having musical numbers in church on a regular basis from a variety of people. 

We finished reading the Book of Mormon at the end of October!!! We will have a little celebration. It was a goal of mine to finish before Elder Neilson returns home from serving a mission in the Nebraska Omaha Mission which concludes in 2 weeks! I can hardly believe 2 years has gone by already. 

 

On another note Hyrum and I are memorizing the seminary scripture mastery verses this year. He has a super teacher. This is his last year of seminary and he wakes up on his own each morning, gets ready for the day including showering and eating before logging on to Skype in our home office on the desktop. After seminary he makes his lunch and heads out to the bus. It is the first time in Neilson history that the boys have had to ride the bus to school and not come home for lunch. The bus stop is conveniently downstairs in front of the store. 

Heading to School in New Denver

The view from our front porch.

Our new church family, the Nelson Branch, has a number of lovely people we are enjoying getting to know. Drew is the new Adult Sunday School teacher and I am the Primary teacher to 3 lovely young ladies ages 6, 9 and 11. The boys continue their duties with the Sacrament each week. We love watching Alick stand by the table next to the Young Men's President who is well over 6 feet tall, both in their dark suits. Recently Alick and one of the missionaries serving here exchanged ties. Elder Spencer is from Idaho I believe and loves the farm. On a shopping trip to Value Village we found a tie with green tractors on it. We bought it and Alick made a trade for a new tie. I hope to get a picture of them with their new ties this coming Sunday.  

We are working on dairy free food for Hyrum and wheat free for Drew. It seems Hyrum and dairy do NOT go well together anymore. Drew's is a choice to eat better. (No more pastries) We made gelato this summer using coconut milk. It was good though very sweet and will use less sugar next time. 

Gelato
2 cup cream
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup citrus (we used pina colada flavour mix)
1/8 tsp salt
Stir altogether until sugar is dissolved then freeze.
YUM YUM YUM!

We have had our fair share of potholes in the road and dead end paths. 

~On one of our journeys from the coast to the valley Drew drove his little red Dodge Shadow and I drove the not so small red Dodge Grand Caravan. With all the travelling we knew we would be doing this year Drew purchased BCAA. Thankfully we had it and a working cellphone because on Highway 3 up the hill just out of Hope, Drew's car died. It just quit running. No sputter, shake, moan, clunk or anything. I noticed he was no longer driving behind me so I turned around and found him pulled off to the side of the road a little ways back. I then returned to Hope where there was cell coverage, called BCAA and returned to Drew and the car. We began the process of stuffing the have to have belongings from Drew's car into the van. Thankfully there was some wiggle room. Drew decided to leave the car with the shop it was being towed to, made arrangements to call them a few days later and carried on. It was a little squished in the van but we managed alright. It turned out the car was going to cost more to fix than it was worth so we stopped by the shop on another journey through collected the rest of the belongings and said good-bye to Drew's car. 

~We brought with us our 3 Goldfish. They survived the move and managed to live on the diet of lettuce we gave them and the water change. The first one to die happened at the end of August I believe. We lost #2 this week so we are now down to 1. 

~As the weather began to change and temperatures dropped we found ourselves with new unwelcomed roommates. Furry little 4 legged ones... Mice :0P Thanks to a loaner trap from Jer, which needed to be re-baited because the first time they ate the peanut butter without setting the trap off, we caught one. Fingers crossed they don't return, we haven't seen nor heard of another one since. After a thorough cleaning and re-organizing of the cupboards that they could get into we enjoyed a little peace. 

~We managed to keep the wasps outside but September brought the invasion of the Leptoglossus occidentalis otherwise known as the stinky Western Conifer Seed Bugs, which we think smell either like bad bananas or maraschino cherries.  They sure look interesting but we do NOT like them cohabiting our apartment. At first we just picked them up and threw them outside but after a couple of days of that I bought Doctor Doom and sprayed the doors and windows. It slowed them down but they still continued to come in. Needless to say they don't live long in the house. 

~The dishwasher doesn't work and how can I forget the kitchen sink wasn't draining. At first it was just slow to drain. Then it quit draining. It was a yucky mess. We tried removing the trap. The landlord gave us some caustic drain cleaner that stunk far worse than all the leptoglossus occidentalis bugs altogher. In the end the plumbing was done incorrectly and there wasn't a vent. So a plumber fixed it all up and we are happy. 

~New winter tires were put on the van yesterday. It is the hot topic everywhere you go... I got my winter tires put on this week. Have you done yours yet?... 

~Lastly since the time zone change happened the sunset is now at about 5pm. We still have 6 weeks to go until the shortest day of the year which happens to be Drew's fave day of the year! BTW it rises around 6:30am. It is going to be a long winter in the evenings. 

I have a few projects I would like to begin and it looks like there will be ample evening time to get going on them. 

Love you all so much. 

C