Dear Kids,
      Things are quiet here. The cats are sitting in the sun, on the deck, next to the door. On the internet, there was a picture of a 33 lb. cat in China. It was built like Xena.
      Dad is driving an articulated bus, now–the kind that bends in the middle. He says it’s weird to turn a corner and have the back half of the bus still going straight ahead. So far he’s doing OK. Next year he wants to take a ski run. I’ll be tempted to ride up with him, and pack along my snowboard. I’m addicted now. Yesterday Allen and Missy and I went to Snowbird, and we had a lot of fun. Well, maybe Missy didn’t. She had worked out vigorously the day before, at a gym where she and Allen bought a membership, so she was tired to begin with. And then, you know how the first time, you’re just falling down and getting up, over and over, about 25 times? That was Missy’s first run. But by the bottom of the hill, she was up and going! But then, she was completely tired out. Saturday night Dad and I are going back, and she’s coming with us, while Allen watches the kids. And Allen–how was his first snowboarding excursion? As you might imagine, he fell down a couple of times, (hurt his back pretty hefty, one time) but after that he was carving down the hill like a pro. He said that those plastic snowboards he and Tom used to have taught him to balance. Missy said riding a skateboard, as a kid, gave her a good head start. No wonder it’s taken me so long to learn! I didn’t have either one of those!
      If you know anybody who wants to get married, tell them to move into our ward. I don’t know what’s going on around here. It was pretty incredible that Kent Maxfield (the 3rd Nephite) found a wife, and also Stacy Clement (now Pickering,) who lives in Roubidoux’s house–she got married and has a baby already. We have an older guy, probably in his 50's, who moved in a couple of years ago-- built himself a nice house in the new neighborhood. Never married. Well, Dad and I saw him in the temple Saturday night, where he’s a sealer, and he’s engaged! He said he met his fiancee on LDSsinges.com. He said that will make three couples in our ward who met that way. (They’re all a little older, incidentally.) So if anybody wants to get married, the combination of ldssingles and moving into our ward ought to do it. Paxmans ought to move back. I heard that Casey was looking up Jim Gibbens. He lives with his mother, has his own nice little part of the house, with his own gourmet kitchen where he can cook splendid dishes for himself.
      Nora and James had a fun 3-day weekend at the cabin. They invited different friends for each night. Nora says it’s nice to stay three days, after all the work of packing the stuff and hauling it into the cabin. There’s lots of snow there now, and everybody had fun sledding.
      Sharon says it’s dang cold in Michigan. It went from about 50 degrees, and raining, to about 5 degrees, in just a couple of days. She says that she and Seth and Charlie went to the Ford Museum with Tara and Nick. She sent me some pictures, which I put up on our web page, in the Thacker gallery. Which reminds me, send me your pictures and news! If you don’t send me your news, I might make up something. It might not be accurate. It might embarrass you. So please do it!
      I’m doin’ great and lovin’ it. Hope you all are, too. Mom