July 3rd was my sister, Quinta's 77th birthday. Her daughter, Randie, wanted to have a surprise dinner at her house in the evening so - to further throw her off guard - we had her join us at Mother's place in LaVerkin for a birthday lunch.Quinta's Surprise Birthday dinner.
It is always a great time when family members get together. Quinta was very surprised when she thought she was attending a quiet dinner with Randie, Brad and Lori to find the rest of us singing "Happy Birthday" to her. Front: Marsha and Eric Nielson, LuDeen Lundin, Lori Beatty.
Back: Randie Haws, Janice and Garth Hansen, Quinta Beatty (Birthday "girl") , Fred Lundin & Brad Beatty. Jeanette Staheli is taking the picture.
JULY 4TH - INDEPENDENCE DAY!
Garth and mother attended the patriotic program in the morning, then we stayed inside out of the heat until evening. We took Mother down on Main Street, LaVerkin to Aunt Ardella's house where we had been invited to eat and watch the LaVerkin "City" parade. We then watched the movie "An American Hero" with Aunt Ardella, Jeanette and Paula.The Hill will never be the same again!!!
That is Mother's house. It was connected to the sewer line for the new development since our last visit. During the week we were there, the heavy equipment was working every day as they finished digging trenches and connecting up the sewer for 6 lots that will be for sale above Mother's house and the house to the north. Needless to say, we constantly had dust filtering into the house and sometimes chose not to be outside because there was so much dust in the air.
Wild Fires in Central Utah.
We headed home Saturday afternoon, little realizing that a huge wildfire was raging in Central Utah. We had just passed Beaver when Garth said he thought we were driving into a thunder storm. It didn't take us long to realize that it was no thunderstorm but that we were very close to the fire.Before we reached Cove Fort we drove into "night" and could see a field of flames west of I-15 on our left. Occasionally, when the heavy black smoke cleared for a moment, we could see them leaping into the air. It was a very eerie feeling to be in the middle of the day (3:00pm) and yet be surrounded by thick black clouds of smoke and falling ash. We had to detour to I-70 and traveled northeast through Richfield, Salina and Gunnison. We were able to return to I-15 at Nephi and arrived home about an hour later than we had planned. It was only after we returned that we found out that I-70 had also been closed after we had gone through. This has become the largest fire in Utah history. We were grateful to be back home safely.
