Workin' it in the Booth!

Just so you know I didn't come here just to play, we finally spent time in our exhibit booth tonight. It was quite interesting as I spoke to physicians from all over Europe. Here is my list so far: Germany, Belgium, Serbia, Czech Republic, Saudia Arabia, Yemen, Russia, Jordan, Switzerland, Israel, Ireland, Scottland, and last but not least, New Zealand.

We did do a little shopping today after we set things up in our booth. We ate lunch at the Hofbrau Haus again and listened to the band play. I think I was the only one in the place not drinking beer - even the kids! And no, that is not a "dark" beer but Coke in a mug!!

I found my new car!

Today was a fun day - not that yesterday was not fun, it was just more up beat by virtue of where we went. We went to the Olympic park where the 1972 Olympics were held. It was very cool. They have a very tall tower like in Auckland and Toronto. We road the elevator to the top and took some pictures. It was not the clearest day so the pictures are not that great. Then we went to the Englishe Gartens and listened to the "oompa" band while everyone drank beer. We walked alot today and I am beat! We ate bratwurst and sauer kraut for dinner at the Hofbrau Haus in down town and it was quite the experience.

I forgot to mention, we went to the BMW museum and show room. Wow, there were some very nice cars! Like this one. It's blue.......and pretty.....please?? OK, I'll have it shipped home.

Guten Tag from MUNCHEN!

Well, I made it to Munich. The flight was brutal but I made it. I just don't tollerate those long flights like I used to. I have now been up for about 29 hours. I am trying to stay awake untill bed time so I can sleep through the night tonight. We arrived at o7:00 this morning and after checking into our hotel we jumped on the train and headed to Dachau, the German concentration camp used during WWII where thousands of jewish and political prisoners were either worked to death, executed, gased and then incinerated. It was a very compelling place to visit. I have a couple of pictures below. One of a huge sculpture of bodies symbolizing the bodys as they were tossed into trenches and mass graves. The other picture is of the place where they creamated the bodies.

After leaving Dachau, we went to the down town section of Munich and had dinner on a open air cafe. I had Sauerbraten and potatoes. It was quite good. Below is an example of some pretty interesting architecture in the center of town. It is the Ratskeller and has human sized figurines that move like a coo-koo clock on the quarter hour.

Our hotel is not very much - its right on the highway which runs next to the railway. No air conditioning of course so we will have to have the windows open - good thing I have ear plugs!

I will try and keep te blog active while I am here so my family can keep up on the goings on.

Dog Days of Summer

It has been a while since I posted a new blog - sorry but our life does not seem very exciting. I figured everyone was tired of hearing about our trips to our cabin. For us, that is about as exciting as it gets! It is exciting for us this year now that we have a well and water in the cabin.

Speaking of dog days - our pups are growing like all the weeds around our place. I bought these two pillows for them to lay down on but this picture is of one of the few times they are not laying down next to each other on one pillow. They are such good buds and have a great time together. I have never had a single incidence of them running off. They are very content to stay around the house and by my side - almost to an annoyance.

Today we were privileged to support Ben and Megan in the blessing of their son Tafton. It was a great day with lots of family support from Megan's family. They had many family members in from out of town for a family reunion over the weekend. I think we over ran the church. We certainly would have over ran Ben and Megan's house so we had it at a park by their house. It was very nice.

August also brings the dread of knowing that school is just around the corner for Shirley and then for Megan shortly after. We still have many projects we would like to get done but as always, the time and funds run out long before the ideas!

This year, August also means preparing for a trip over seas. I have the opportunity to attend the European Society of Cardiology meeting in Munich, Germany. The best part is that the tab will be picked up by Cardiovascular Credentialing International who I do consulting work for. I have mixed feelings - on one hand I am excited to go back to Germany. It has been a long time since Grandma Passey and I went to visit Hudson and Carol in the fall of 1975. On the other hand, it would be much nicer if Shirley could go with me. I wish these trips could happen while school is out so she could get away. Also, I have done very little to get ready for the trip.

Shirley was doing some cleaning down stairs and came across some great photos. I thought I would include the one below. I remember Shirley organizing an Easter egg hunt at Grandma and Grandpa's house every year. This year was 1989 and we were fortunate to have some of Carol's kids there. Just like puppies and weeds kids grow up too! If you look close, it looks like Ben is sporting a wicked mullet! I would say they are pretty cute kids.

I Almost Forgot!

I meant to mention in my last post (sorry for the spacing issues and multiple typos) that as we were coming down off of the mountain we came across a guy and his family who's truck got stuck in a mud bog. We were able to help him flag down another vehicle to help pull him out. This brings up the "touchy" part. The guy was driving a Ford F-150 which was embarrassing enough, but the vehicle that pulled him out was a Toyota Four Runner. OK - I invite all of you Englands to make your comments. I was going to take a picture of it but could not bear to relive the site of it.

The Simple Pleasures of Life!

It may seem like all we ever do is go up to our cabin in the Uintahs. Well, actually, that is pretty much the truth. It has only been recently that we have done other things. Anyway, last year we made a significant investment in our property in the Uintahs by contracting to have a well drilled. There were three of us who went in together; my good friend Doug Illum who owns the lot next to ours, and his son Cody who owns the lot on the other side of Doug. It's a good thing 3 of us went in together on this because it wound up costing us more than 3 times what we expected. I have been working frantically this summer to finish plumbing the cabin so we could enjoy our investment. I am happy to announce that we now have water! I meant to take a picture of the toilet flushing but forgot. We have hot water and it is sop nice to be able to take a shower, to be able to do dishes without having to heat water on the stove, etc. I can't believe we have waited 26 years for this luxury.

We took a drive over to Whitney Reservoir to go for an ATV ride. It was a beautiful ride bit the trail was a bit dusty.

Shirley and Megan enjoying the view.

We came across a beautiful meadow with wild flowers and it seemed appropriate to take a picture of Shirley in the middle of the flowers.

Somewhere in there is Natalie washing the dust off!

We love the mountains and spending time at our cabin with our family. And now we can enjoy the simple pleasures of life such as a flush toilet rather than the "one holer" on the hill!

Alaska via Cedar City

I had promised Shirley I would take her to Alaska after she finished her Master's program. After receiving a pretty nice bonus from work things were looking pretty good. After looking at some of the projects we wanted to complete this summer we decided that we couldn't do it all. Megan had been invited to go to SUU with the Morgan High girls soccer team. There was a little anxiety on her part because she went to a soccer camp at BYU the summer before and got a little home sick. We decided to support her and go to Cedar City for the week that she would be down there. We really had a good time. We went to 3 different plays at the Shakespearean festival. We also went to St. George and did a session at the St. George temple. We drove back the long way and stopped at the Mountain Meadow Massacre site. We also drove up to Brian Head as well as over to the Cedar Breaks National Monument. It was very impressive. The nicest thing was that we were really not pressed for time and pretty much did whatever we wanted, when we wanted to. We watched Megan play soccer at least one game a day, shopped, and ate at some nice restaurants. It wasn't quite Alaska but it was fun anyway.


This is a picture of Megan during one of her games. She is the one in the center with red shorts. She played most of the time and was seldom subbed out. I was a little worried she would be intimidated by playing with older girls but she played well and I was very proud of her.