Fortie Family Flyer: July 5

Fortie Family Flyer

July 5 – 11, 2010

Dear Family and Friends,

The first part of this week is a continuation of last week’s trip to Nathan and Paige’s home in Washington to be a part of Wyatt’s baby blessing.

(Here is a little note from Friday night of last week.) When we first arrived in Washington we found our hotel was not in the best area and there were several people wandering past our door that we were a bit nervous about. The boys didn’t seem to be bothered because they had lived for two years, on their missions, in areas much worse than this hotel was in so it was no big deal. However, those of us who had daughters were a bit more nervous. Some families decided to get another hotel for the rest of the trip but I had a feeling we would be alright and Brian and Jason and I talked to the people and made friends with a few of them so we seemed to be accepted and the feeling was that all would be well.

(Now back to Monday.) On Monday we headed to Nathan and Paige’s home from our hotels for a group breakfast. The funny (and a bit scary) thing that we found out that morning was that right outside the hotel that everyone else went to, in order to get away from the one we stayed at, there was a man murdered during the night. With all the police activity there at the hotel the others were delayed so the breakfast was a little late. Everyone joked about how funny it was that our hotel turned out to be the safest. I think it was our attitude towards the people that helped the most. Anyway, we had a nice breakfast and said our goodbye’s and headed out. We sure enjoyed our time with Nathan and Paige and little Wyatt. Hope to see them now and then as he grows so he will know who we are.

We separated from the others to take Brian to Oregon to see some of the people from his mission. We left him in Salem with a member who helped him get around and Jason, Michelle, Jennifer and I went to see Silver Falls just outside of Salem (Tami went with grandpa and grandma). It was just as beautiful as I remembered it from the last time I was there many years ago. We hiked around, took pictures then headed for the coast. I was hoping to walk along the sidewalks of one of the little towns along the coast to get a souvenir and just feel the atmosphere there but we got such a late start and had a hard time finding things in Salem that we didn’t get to the coast until sunset. Jason was driving and got stopped by the police for speeding. I looked over at the speedometer when I saw the police and saw that he wasn’t going that fast so when they said he was going 75 I sat up (I had been resting) and just said there was no way he was going that fast because I looked over right when we saw the police car. They went back to there car for a few minutes and then came back and said they would just give us a warning and told us to be careful. Makes you wonder how honest they are or how much pressure there is to give out speeding tickets so the city can make money (especially from people from out of state).

Anyway, we took a few pictures of the coast at sunset (which was rather windy and cold, in fact, much of the weekend was quite cold for July) and headed home. The rest of the drive was uneventful through Oregon, Idaho and Utah.

When we got home we had a few days of rushing to unpack and pack by Thursday the 8^th to send Michelle to girl’s camp for three days and Jennifer to France for two weeks. I’ll have to see if I can get the girls to write about their trips and add it in.

Once the girls were gone I had meetings with the Census Bureau to get a new crew for the last phase of the census which was checking on duplicates and other strange problems like addresses that had been marked as non existent to try one more time to be absolutely sure we got everyone. There were a few people in my new team that were pretty good but for the most part I really missed my old crew. In fact, a few of the people drove me crazy with problems and talking my ear off about every little detail that I didn’t need to know, etc. I was glad that group only lasted a few weeks.

After a few days in Oregon Brian flew home and seemed to have a good time.

On Sunday I taught the High Priests about The Priesthood. I found most of my material from We Believe a book of quotes from general authorities… good stuff.

Well, that’s it, or at least that’s it for me. Brian and the girls of course had some great experiences and hopefully I can get them to get it down in writing.

Keep traveling,

Ken and clan