mike and ruth

Charlotte and Andrew gave us a call this evening when they went home to say that Grandma had fallen and we needed to come over right away. Fortunately it wasn’t very long after she was injured that the kids arrived at her home. We have since taken her to the hospital and we were just told that she has a broken hip, which we suspected. She was out watering her garden and tripped over a hose (we think). She said she fell on the concrete and was stuck there, having to kind of drag herself into the garage. The kids found here there on her knees and they ran to help her, and when we arrive they had managed to get her seated on a chair. She was in a lot of pain but we were able to get her in the car with some effort and discomfort. She was x-rayed just a few minutes ago and the break was confirmed. We don’t know how bad it is at this point but she will need surgery of some kind, probably on Sunday.

This Memorial Day was almost like the first “day of the summer” and school will be out in only a week for the kids in the neighborhood.

Here we are with much of Mom’s family at the cemetery

I spent several weeks in Kansas teaching newly-hired engineers some of the responsibilities of their new positions to support NetApp customers. The time there went by fairly quickly. We were able to arrance for Mom to come spend several days for a visit. While we were together we traveled to Kansas City and then also to Nauvoo to do work in the temples at both locations. It was a treat to visit these beautiful buildings and feel the spirit that was there. The people are always very kind, and we fit right in as if we were locals in both locations. Since we went so late in the season Nauvoo was very quiet, not the usual bustling community with hundreds of tourists and other visitors crowding the grounds and the Visitor Center. The time together was great. We had to part ways again after a few days so Ruth could get back to her job at the Mt. Timpanogos Temple on Thursdays but I was able to come home only a little over a week later. It’s nice to be home again!

I spent three great weeks working in Costa Rica with engineers there. My job is to train Technical Support Engineers how to support the product we take care of, which is hardware and software storage systems from NetApp. The people I worked with are very talented and I had a great experience. I am grateful to them for the opportunity to work with them and hope we will get to work together more in the future. Hopefully I will also make it back to Costa Rica sometime. Their Trainer came to the US for a week and we worked through a class together there.

While in Costa Rica I got to know some other people there very well, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and value greatly the friendship we developed. Andrey was very generous with his time and provided me a way to get to church each week. The people in the Ward were very friendly and I enjoyed the meetings with them. Their temple is beautiful and I very much enjoyed the time I was able to spend there. I went to the Carara National Park not too far from San Jose one Saturday thanks to the kindness of a local tour operator. This was also a very unique and enjoyable experience.

Things have been busy in our lives as they are for everyone. We drove to St. George two weekends ago to be with family there and then back up to Draper for a military event. Last week we took a quick trip to Rexburg ID for the wedding reception of our daughter-in-law’s sister. We were more inclined to go when we heard that Emily was traveling clear over from Finland to be there. It was great to see the family again. It has been a few years since we have seen them. We spent time with Melodie also and got to skype with Kristen at home for a while. We were very blessed that the snow we saw in the morning on our way to the temple was gone and we didn’t have to drive in it on the way home that afternoon and evening. It is snowing right now outside the door but fortunately this weekend we don’t have any plans for travel anywhere that is too far away other than to SLC for Tab Choir on Sunday. We are looking forward to Thanksgiving next week. This week we will celebrate twice; witn Mom’s family on Thursday and with my family on Saturday. We take turns, and my family meets every year regardless of whether it is actually on Thanksgiving Day or the following Saturday.
We heard on the news today that Nordstrom is closing its Orem University Mall store next February, citing that the sales expectations had never been met by the store. We are saddened that there will be nearly 200 employees affected by this closure and hope that they will find other employment qukckly.