Fishing at Vivian

Jeff's back to fishing and the kids love it.

The whole gang

Sarah's catch and reporting.

Aaron's catch.

Trevor's little fish.

Trevor's catch

Timothy's not scared of the fish, like Kathy is. She requires 5 times of hand-washing before letting the kids touch anything.

Budding Artists

Saturdays are always busy with cleaning, working, weeding, etc but this Saturday we added painting, gardening, and bike repairing. What a joyous day it was. Honestly, it was fun to witness, as long as I didn't look too closely at the floor or the messes everywhere.
Check out this darling concentration

Trevor

Aaron

My favorite Art Gallery--OUR KITCHEN!


My favorite repair shop--OUR KITCHEN!


All Tired Out!

Trevor's Duchesne County Report

Jeff loves Gardening, but I had to get involved this year, since he was gone. Let's hope it grows.

Spencer and Kalysha before Senior Ball

Argentina

I enjoyed my first visit to Argentina! It was a lot of work to make arrangements for the kids, but well worth it. We so appreciate all those who helped out while I was gone. Thank-you. We had a busier trip that I anticipated, but it was a spiritual and amazing experience. We loved the students from the Living Legends group and were amazed with their talent and expertise, as were the Argentine people. Here's some photos and video clips of their dances and costumes and the country. This is the Buenos Aires Temple, you can see the Argentine flag peaking from behind.


Osvaldo and Maria Celeste Berreneche's daughters, Maria Luz, Maria Marta, and Maria Clara. Jeff and Osvaldo went to graduate school at the University of Arizona in the mid 1990s. He returned to Argentina where he now teaches history at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata.




In La Plata with Hugo and Maria Darias (front left), who Jeff stayed with for many months during his dissertation research, along with their daughter, Isabel, and her husband Daniel.

One of the many dinners provided by local stakes for us on tour. This one is in La Plata.

Kathy's favorite cathedral in La Plata.

The Buenos Aires Temple (you can see the Argentine flag peaking out from behind).

Jeff was right in predicting all these years that I would love the food. I did!!

At the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, where so many things happened in Argentine history (city founding, fort, formation of first independent government, the Perons, Mothers of the Disappeared, etc.).


One day I was sitting in a theater in Buenos Aires watching the students set up, and I heard this most beautiful sound echoing from some distant place. I followed the sound to a basement stair well and captured some of the beauty. This is a song they sing while doing a Hawaiian dance.


Paraguayan Dance

Tahitian Dance

Argentine Dance

Bolivian Dance


New Zealand Dance


Hawaiian Dance

This is the Maori song they sang as a thank-you to many of the people who hosted us so generously. This was at the Museo de Arte Hispanamericano in Buenos Aires on the last day of the tour.

Aztec Dance. Look at the costumes and imagine the set-up and clean-up that goes in to the production. They had to ship a boat full of costumes over in advance.

Tongan Joseph Smith Laka-Laka Dance (notice first vision and baptism choreography)

Mexican Dance


Native American Dance


A Hawaiian number performed as a thank you for a dinner in Buenos Aires.

The students are dancers at heart, and here they are doing their version of the Bollywood dance at the Republic of Children that Evita built for children's education and enjoyment.

I loved the opportunity to finally travel to Argentina. I was grateful to get to meet so many wonderful people that Jeff has been telling me about for years. But I certainly was happy to be reunited with my kids and it looked like they had grown up a lot.

Timothy and Sarah have fallen in love with the movie Mulan and here's their favorite songs to sing.

Jeff with Living Legends in Argentina

Hello to all. This is Jeff writing from Resistencia, Argentina. I have been touring with the BYU dance group, Living Legends, for the last week. It is a group made up of Latinos, Native Americans, and Polynesians who do dances from thoses cultures. I actually went to Paraguay two days early to see the Iguazu Falls, which were magnificent. The group arrived on Wednesday of last week. We started in Asuncion, Paraguay, where we were received by the first lady of the country (we were performing for her charity). We did five shows in Asuncion (including double shows Friday and Saturday). Then on Monday we traveled to Resistencia, Argentina. We arrived very late to our destination because the whole bus was checked twice for any symptoms of flu by doctors at the border and at a nearby hospital. Argentina is very worried about preventing swine flu from entering the country. We finally arrived just in time to eat a big asado (Argentine bbq) last night. Today we met with some native Qom Indians (also known as Toba) and went to a school in the Toba neighborhood. We just finished performing in Resistencia, province of Chaco, in northern Argentina.

It has all been an inspiring experience. The group is wonderful. They connect so well with the people. I can't tell me how many people have come up to me after a performance with the brightest of countenances to express their grattitude for the performances. "Now I can die in peace," said one woman in Asuncion. A T.V. personality from Resistencia, acting as MC, was also very touched by the performance, as were many other community dignitaries.

Tomorrow we are headed to Santa Fe, then on to Cordoba, and Buenos Aires.

The asado that awaited us in Resistencia, Argentina.

Waiting to get checked for the flu in Formosa, Argentina, near the border with Paraguay.

The doctors who checked us at customs at the Paraguayan border.

With Liz Belliard and Stephanie Marquez in their Aztec outfits.

Living Legends finale in Asuncion stake center.

With the first lady of Paraguay (sister of president Lugo, who is a Catholic priest and unmarried,so his sister became first lady).

Me at Iguacu Falls on the Brazilian side. I went to Paraguay two days early so I could see the falls (these were the ones seen in the movie "The Mission.")

The heart of Iguacu falls (actually called "The Devil's Throat). The water was quite low, but it was still spectacular.

The famed dorado of the Parana river, one of the fiercest game fish in fresh water. I only wish I caught this beauty, but it was for sale at a roadside stand so I took a photo of what could have been.

A view of the Parana river from my hotel in Cuidad del Este, Paraguay, where I stayed while going to the falls.

JUNIOR PROM!!!

Spencer with Demarie at the promenade.

Gabe, Brian, and Spencer

At the Zoo for the before-hand date.

No heading needed!!! Handsome boys!


EASTER 2009

Timothy in his Winnie the Pooh costume.

Jeff's hand surgery

Jeff's new low-profile brace.

The pin as it was for 5 weeks (below, but it was always covered with a cast) and it being removed (above).

The scar on Jeff's thumb. This was right after the cast came off so it is a lot of dried blood, dead skin, and some drawing done by the surgeon. It cleaned up quite nicely.

A fuller version of Jeff's hand injury and surgery: On Valentines Day Jeff went to play basketball with Spencer, Rickey, and some neighborhood friends. The teams were Jeff and three freshmen in high school: Rickey, K.C. Miller, and Alex Berge. The opposing team was made up of three juniors at Timpview and one 8th grader: Eli Robison, T.J. Salmon, and Q. Robison. After Jeff and the freshmen had won a couple of games and were in the proeces of winning the third, Jeff rebounded a ball and collided with T.J, a 6'7'' inch, 240 pound giant. With Jeff gripping the ball with his might, the ball collided with T.J.'s abdomen, which forced the ball, and Jeff's thumb, in the opposite direction. A loud pop and a groan from Jeff announced some kind of injury. T.J. was not sure what had happened because it really was not any kind of bump of note. Regarding Jeff's groan, a few minutes later Rickey asked Jeff why he had groaned so loud. Jeff came home and Kathy immediatly knew something was wrong because Jeff's face was very white and he was getting the chills.

To make a long story short, an x-ray revealed a bone chip inside of the left base of the left thumb, which led the doctor to diagnose a stener lesion--where the ligament tears away from the bone, taking a chip of the bone with it (that made Rickey understand, at least a little bit, why Jeff groaned). An MRI confirmed that diagnosis and the doctor highly recommended surgery, if Jeff ever wanted to be able to grip anything tightly again. So on Monday, March 2nd, Jeff had surgery on his thumb. The doctor put a titanium screw with a little eye on the end of it, into the thumb. He used the eye to sew the ligament right up to the bone. He then inserted a pin into the joint to prevent the joint from moving--the ligament needed time to heal back onto the bone. Jeff wore a soft cast for two weeks, then had the stitches out and got a hard cast for four more weeks. The pin stayed in. The new cast was so wide when measured from the outside of the hand to the end of the extended thumb, that Jeff could not wear any coats except his trench coat because he couldn't get his hand through the sleeve.

Today, the cast came off and the pin came out. It was not as gross or painful as Jeff thought it would be, although he did not look while they pulled the pin out with vice grips. He now has a much smaller brace that he can take on and off. He will wear that for a few more weeks, taking it off a few times a day to stretch the ligament. He wont' be able grip anything very hard for many more weeks while the ligament grows in strength.