Gianna Jessen, abortion survivor

that's right. This chick survived an abortion. Check her out! She has a lot of really interesting (and GREAT) things to say. Love her.

Christmas and Paris

I decided it was time to updated this blog and replace the "Turkey" with something more current, say Christmas. So, here is Carma's Christmas tree. She does do a nice tree don't you think? But so far, she hasn't decided to put up her several dozen nativities - only three so far.

And I thought I should occassionally post some of my pictures from our whirlwind tour of Europe. I know you've seen many of the great pictures that James took, but not many of my "not so great" pictures. Did you know they light up the Eiffel Tower at night in different colors? Well, here it is in blue.

And how about the Venus de Milo; and the "Winged Victory of Samothrace" at the Louvre - with James and Delos in the forground (I do have better pictures of this, but they don't have the "American tourists" included to show we were really there!

happy thanksgiving!

i hope you all have a very happy

thanksforgiving,

no matter where you are today!

Christmas Name Draws

Hey- these are the names for the Larson family this year, organized by family.

Alice & Dave- Ellen & Jared
Summer- David
Logan- Luke
Hunter- Austin
Haley- Isaac

Delos & Misty- Emily & Dave
Austin- Haley
Alex- Kate
David- Summer

Sara & CJ- Alice & Dave
Hannah- Jack
Charlie- Logan
Rachel- Alex

Ellen & Jared- Sara & CJ
Luke- Hunter
Abby- Noah
Kate- Rachel

James & Holly- Delos & Misty
Caleb- Hannah
Jack- Charlie

Emily & Dave- James & Holly
Isaac- Abby
Noah- Caleb

Winter Has Arrived in Utah

And we have 6 to 8 inches of snow to prove it. Geez, I haven't even turned off my sprinkler system yet.

Draper Temple

As you can see, the Draper Temple is nearing completion. The open house is scheduled for Jan. 15th - Mar. 14th (they are expecting over 1 million visitors), and dedication is scheduled for Mar. 20-22, 4 sessions per day.

Our stake center shares a parking lot with this temple, so soon we will have to drive a little over a mile to go to the temple - instead of the "long journey" to the Jordan River Temple, nearly 5 miles away! As you can see, it is a beautiful building in a beautiful setting - like all of our wonderful temples. (You can see lots of pictures of the temple under construction at our Stake Historian's web site: http://www.drapertemple.blogspot.com/

Late Fall Hike

It has been such a great fall, I decided I needed to take another hike before the snow sets in. I thought it might be a little cold at 8,000 to 9,000 feet so I took a coat and sweatshirt. Well, I didn't need either. It was about 75 degrees at 9000 ft. Warmer than it was in SLC. Must be an inversion?

Anyway, I drove to Brighton and walked around Silver Lake, then hiked to Lake Solitude (Pond?) - only about 1 mile away and a 300 foot elevation change. Pretty easy hike, but it was very pleasant. The aspens have lost all their leaves by this time at this elevation.

Silver Lake (at Brighton) There is a nice boardwalk around this lake so you could take your kids and walk around it in about 30 minutes.

(On the shady side of this lake there was ice and slush in the water)

Lake Solitude (about 9000 ft elevation)

There was snow in the shade along the edge of Lake Solitude, which was pretty amazing since it was in the 70's.

It's A .....

GIRL After one failed ultrasound attempt, due to a badly placed umbilical cord, my doctor was nice enough to do another ultrasound yesterday to determine sex of the baby. So it looks like there's going to be another girl in the Huddleston family. Luke cried, Jared practically cried, and the girls all rejoiced.

Whirlwind Tour of Europe

James, Delos and I took a quick trip to Europe to accompany Delos on a business trip. (He is still there for another week - Misty flew out today (Monday) to meet him in Dublin and we're watching their kids). We were gone for 8 days, but since two of those were travel days we had to move fast to see a lot of country in a short time.

So here we are in Warsaw Poland

(There was a festival going on the day we landed in Warsaw. James wanted to dance with some of the performers, but they said he would have to settle for a picture!)

(The "Palace on the Isle"in beautiful Laziewski gardens - several hundred acres and the highlight of Warsaw. Below is the monument to Frederic Chopin in the gardens.)

(Old- rebuilt - Warsaw; Hitler systematically blew up the entire city block by block when the Poles rose up against him towards the end of WW II).






And then on to Ghent Belgium (the perfect European setting and ambience with few tourists)


(The view in front of our Hotel in Ghent)

(Flemish Castle)

And from there to Brussels (for a short lunch) at a sidewalk cafe in the "Grand Place"

From Brussels to Paris on a high-speed train (300 km/hr - which is about 200 miles per hour for you non-metric Americans). The speed at which the scenery went by made you dizzy.

(I think you recognize the locations)

(If you're wondering about the strange pose - this is Notre Dame Cathedral; surely you can guess!)

And then another high-speed train to London (including the 22 mile tunnel under the English Channel)

I could talk a lot about the trip and each location, but in summary, it was a great trip. We had a super good time. James and I walked about 6 to 10 miles a day while Delos was in his business meetings. Then when he got out, we all just kept going (he had no meetings in Paris or London). We had beautiful warm fall weather the entire week - very unusual for Europe. The subways systems in Paris and London were great and easy to use. James took over 700 pictures but I decided you might not want to see all of them! I took a few but all but one of the pictures above are from James.

i'm a guest blogger over at light refreshments served today. go check it out!

happy birthday!

Delos and his wife Misty share the same birthday.

It's today.

Happy birthday guys!

Misty by the "lilies of the field" in Jerusalem

Delos on the 2000 year old steps recently excavated and
"certainly used by Jesus himself many times as they lead down toward Gethsemane."

Mom's New Ride

The picture from Emily's post doesn't show up when I go to the site, so here it is again. Let's see if this works

Early Fall Hike

Haven't been on many hikes this summer (the overnighter to the King's Peak area in the high Uintahs with Delos and Austin was so short it almost doesn't count. Delos did take a few good pictures though so I need to get them and post them. It was beautiful country.)

Thursday was a nice day so I decided to take one of my favorite hikes - to Red Pine Lake off Little Cottonwood Canyon. It's about 3.5 miles one way and goes from about 7000 feet to 9600 feet, so it is good exercise for an old man. (And, I need to get ready for next weeks hike of the west rim of Zion's with Jared).

I took my new Garmin (GPS) that Carma got for me to see if I could figure out how to use it. I did figure a few things out - how far you've gone, average speed, elevation and elevation change, etc. - but some of what I wanted to do with it remain a mystery. These are great devices. If you think you are lost you can look at the GPS and see right where you are - so then you know you're lost- but the GPS says "you're right here". Gee thanks, I know I'm here - I can see the trees. What I want to know is how to "go where I want to go"? With a PhD in engineering I shouldn't be technologically challenged, but I'm not sure these things are as useful as a plain old-fashioned map.

Anyway, here are a few pictures I took along the way. You can see the fall colors are just beginning. I saw a couple people on the trail, but when I got to the lake there was not another soul there. I do love the solitude and the beauty.

email from dad about hurricane ike

Got this email from Dad today. Utah winters are looking better and better (comparatively).

Dear Kids,

I learned last night and again this morning that the National Weather Service Warning for Hurricane Ike and the mandatory evacuation notice for Galveston Island and around Galveston Bay said, “If you do not evacuate you face certain death”. Wow, I think that is an unprecedented warning and so far Ike is still only a Category 2 hurricane. As you have probably heard, it is a monster storm, over 500 miles across, and still headed directly towards Galveston and Houston. Winds are exceeding 100 mph as far as 275 miles away from the eye of the storm. Since the storm is moving, so far, at about 10 miles per hour, if the storm passes directly over an area, the winds of 100+ miles per hour will last for about 50 hours – over 2 full days.

In case you didn’t know, Sara and CJ’s area also received a mandatory evacuation notice. So, they left yesterday for Orlando. We were in touch with them by cell phone several times during the day. CJ had to teach a class in the morning and then he was suppose to work the rest of the day. But they were shutting MD Anderson down so he went home and they packed up and left – got away about 11 am. They appeared to be ahead of much of the traffic and made it to Beaumont (about 90 miles east of Houston, near the Texas/Louisiana border before traffic starting backing up. They got off I-10 and went on state road 90 for a while. But this storm is so big that storm warnings go from Mexico all across the gulf to Pensacola, FL. So, people had started evacuating from the coastal areas and as they came to cities of any size the traffic was a big mess. Most people were heading north rather than East, so after they would get through the cities, they could go at freeway speeds again. But at Beaumont, Lake Charles, Lafayette, Baton Rouge, the traffic was terrible. Sara said it took them over 2 hours to get across Baton Rouge. So, it took them over 10 hours to make 300 miles. They stayed in Slidell, LA last night (they had made hotel reservations in advance) and hopefully, were far enough east that they should be out of most of the traffic problems today (We haven’t talked to them today). But it is still about 10 hours or more from there to Orlando if the traffic is clear, so they still have a long day ahead of them. But we are pleased they are out of harm’s way in any event.

Steven had sent me an e-mail offering to have CJ and Sara shelter at their place in Humble if they wanted – they are about 40 miles or so north of Houston on higher ground apparently. So, I forwarded that e-mail to Sara. But, since the Orlando trip has been scheduled for a long time (CJ has a meeting there) they just decided to leave early and go ahead with that. They plan to spend time at Disney World and Epcott. I think they will be there most of next week. Steven is in Delaware and is suppose to fly home today, but I doubt that the Houston airports will be open.

When they left, their neighbors were boarding up their homes, but CJ and Sara decided to not do that even though CJ had bought the plywood for it earlier in the week. They decided they needed to get out. CJ told Sara, “everything that is important to us is in the car, so let’s just go. The stuff in the house is replaceable.” So they hope they will have a house to go home to when this is over. I hope they didn’t leave any toys, barbecue grills or swing sets setting in their yard – they will be gone for sure – along with the fences. But it was good they got ahead of the Houston traffic. Later in the day, they called to talk to friends who were still in Houston who told them the freeways were all completely jammed – just big parking lots.

Houston decided to recommend that many areas “shelter in place” or “hunker down” as they say in Texas, rather than attempt to evacuate over 4 million people. Last time they tried to evacuate the whole city, over 110 people died in traffic – far more than were killed or injured by the hurricane and thousands of people became stranded because they could not get gasoline. So, only the lower lying areas south of Houston were told to evacuate - but that is still over 1 million people.

We expect we will hear from Sara and family as they get to Orlando so we’ll let you know.

Dad

happy birthday, noah!

thanks to emilie for the awesome pictures and layout.

turtle ride

last night we had dinner at mom and dad's house. alice & dave with logan, hunter, and haley (summer stayed in albuquerque for school), delos and misty with austin, alex, and david; ellen and jared with luke, abby, and kate; james (holly and kids went back to logan on saturday); and me & dave with noah and isaac. we had turkey & stuffing, mashed & sweet potatoes, the works. it was excellent.

it started raining and hailing really hard late in the day so noah and i went outside to watch it.



pretty soon we were joined by kate. these two binkie babies had a lot of fun "riding" the turtles.
i had to get a few pictures of their cuteness.



and last, here's a funny video of the two of them talking about the cold wind and riding turtles.




we missed you sara!

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad.

45 years is a HUGE deal.

Thanks for getting married 45 years ago.

We all appreciate it.



And by all, I mean:

4 daughters
2 sons
4 sons-in-law
2 daughters-in-law
7 granddaughters
10 grandsons
(with one more grandson on the way and one unknown on the way).
We love you!

The Olympics and Life

If you are like us, you probably spent time watching some of the 2008 Olympics in the past couple weeks. The strength, skill, speed, and dedication of these world class athletes is truly amazing to witness. As we watched some individual events and saw world records broken, it seemed that with the right motivation, training and coaching, the capabilities of human endeavors and endurance are almost unlimited. Part of the fascination of the Olympic games is the spark of imagination it gives to each of us about what is possible when someone sets a goal, believes what is possible, then pays the price necessary – years of training and practice for many hours a day in this case – to accomplish their goal. Though they all know that only one gold medal will be given in each event, the very idea that they just might become the “best in the world” drives them onward. And, while there is disappointment for those who don’t win the gold, generally there still seems to be enthusiasm and even exhilaration that they were able to participate. And clearly, each receives great benefit from their striving. The Olympic Games are a true demonstration and celebration of the human spirit.

All of us can draw inspiration by watching those who, through extraordinary effort, achieve excellence. It provides motivation for each of us to consider how we might be a little better in various aspects of our lives. Whether one works as a janitor, a surgeon, a judge, a technician, a mom or a dad, our lives can be fuller and more complete if we consider and work toward improving and achieving excellence. When we embrace the “habitual vision of greatness” [Alfred North Whitehead] our lives find their most satisfying fulfillment. The great British Explorer, Captain James Cook – first to circumnavigate the earth – said, “I had an ambition not only to go farther than any man had ever been before, but I wanted to go as far as it was possible for any man to go”. What would our experiences be like if in our journey of life we set our goals to go as far as it is possible for anyone to go.

The greatest pattern of excellence was given to us by the Savior, who taught that in our striving we should seek to “Be ye, therefore, perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect’. (Matt 5:48) And the prophet Alma taught, “I know that God granteth unto men according to their desire”. (Alma 29:14) It is clear that God intended that those whom He created in His own image and endowed with His own potentialities should live their lives with fulfillment and excellence. Amidst life’s challenges it is still a thrilling opportunity to devote our lives to improvement, growth and achievement.

Kit Kat

Big News!

We have another new member of our family.

She doesn't have a name yet.

She just fell in love with Logan...

And my dad actually likes cats.

and so my mom had to bring her home.

She and the dogs don't exactly get along.

She does the cutest things...

If you could hear her purr!

So next time instead of paying 5 bucks for a petting zoo,

come to our house.

Pet count:

2 dogs

1 cat

1 hamster
1 snake

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is mom's 67th birthday.

I don't have any pictures of her because I'm not at home,
but I wanted her to know we think she's GREAT.

Have a very happy day!