Catching Up

I have to admit that Liz & Heather put us all to shame for neglecting the blog site, particularly Liz of late. I don't know that I have the stamina to write about everything that we've done in the past few months, but I'll post a few a little bit now and try to post more later.




Probably the biggest event was our cruise to Alaska. I've never been real keen about going to cold rainy climes to view the scenery. While we saw some very beautiful places and sights we'll never see again up close, I don't think we'll cruise Alaska again. The pictures above and below are of Mom and a Bear (how's that for being a straight man).



I think the highlight for us was seeing icebergs and then Dawes Glacier as shown in the photos below. The icebergs were notable for the deep blue color that was a surprise to us. Mostly we saw small icebergs that he captain referred to as "bergy bits". We didn't get real close to the glacier because of the number and proximity of icebergs in the area. If you look real close at the photo, you'll see a small ship (probably 75' long)in the distant foreground that gives you a better feel for the immense size of the glacier.




Right now we're all getting ready to to to Disneyland for a few days (Oct 1 - Oct 5) and we're really looking forward to the time together. More pictures to come - maybe even from everyone.

Love, Dad

Trip to Wisconsin

Shawn and Liz took a trip to Wisconsin to celebrate a 70th Anniversary for the Sartori Cheese Company and had a long weekend. It is really pretty there! We saw some BIG cows and a lot of barns.

Shawn told me NOT to complain that he never took me anywhere - We drove right past Belgium! We also walked around the shore of Lake Michigan and looked at Sheboygan Falls. (See the enclosed Pictures... ha-ha!)


We had a fun time being together. The trip was a blast, even if it was in the wilds of Plymouth, Wisconsin.

Labor Day BBQ

Shawn smoked ribs for Labor day and they were gooooood! It's too bad ya'all were'nt here because we had smoked calico beans, mac n'cheese with black truffles, potato salad and homemade bbq sauce served up with our ribs. We guzzled it all down with fresh squeezed lemonade or root beer. Shawn spent all day cooking. It was like thanksgiving came early. We stuffed ourselves silly but it was fabulous!

To end the evening, he made a heavenly dessert from the French Laundry cookbook with a cinnamon icecream and a light and fluffy chocolate molten meringue concoction on the top and a yummy cookie on the bottom. I'll insert a picture so you can see what it looked like. (I forgot to take a picture of what it looked like when he served up the real thing so I had to take one when he did the reproduction with the stuff that was left over the next night. It may not look as pretty but it sure tasted good!)

I'll try to upload the video I took of the table and the carving of the ribs. Poor dog wanted to eat bbq too but we had to tell her, "Dogs don't like ribs!" (I don't think she believes us.)

First Day of School For the Grovers in Idaho

School has Started in Pocatello and we are so excited! Can you just feel the energy??? The kids were up bright and early and ready to go - NOT!

It was a really sad wake-up call at 6:30 this morning. The kids dragged their sorry butts out of bed grumbling the whole time. Kyle even asked me to call the school last night and excuse him for the rest of the year due to a coma. When we woke up to 56 degree weather and a down-pour this morning we figured the rest of the day just had to get better!


Cheer up, kids! At least the day isn't a full school day, yet. You get to do that tomorrow!

The Grovers visit Yellowstone

In July Shawn and Liz took their family to Yellowstone as part of a family reunion with Liz's family. We camped out for a week and looked at all the hot water. At one point, the kids were heard complaining that if they wanted to watch boiling water, they could have stayed home and watched it in the kitchen on the stove. Nice.

Any how, we got to see one of the most beautiful places on earth.


While we were there, Claudia, Bob Wrathall's wife, bought the book Deaths in Yellowstone and we read the hair raising stories around the campfire. It was like some sort of horrible car accident and we couldn't look away; we kept returning to these stories like moths to a grisly flame. It was oddly fascinating.

We drove around the loop of the park and looked at the beautiful formations and watched Old Faithful erupt a few times. Got eaten by bugs and slept in a tent on top of some roots. It was camping in its glory. By Thursday we were so grimy that Liz and Shawn washed their hair in the cold water out of the tap. It was zesty!(Dad and Claudia went and paid for showers.)

Kyle and Morgan made walking sticks under the direction of their Uncle David and they both turned out really cool. When the peeled bark got toasted, they carved designs into the blackened wood. Kyle found some cord and put it around the top of his stick and Morgan carved her name into hers.

At the end of the week, we left and gratefully drove home toward showers and our own beds. Morgan was just glad she didn't have to share the bathroom with any more spiders!

Here is a photo from last Friday night when the Grover clan got together for a nice dinner with Grandpa at Silverado. Everyone had a really nice time and it was fun to see Grandpa and laugh and visit with everyone! I'm sure my Dad will add some more photos too. - Heather



For those of you who are interested, Tom finished the sprint Triathlon in about an hour and 15 minutes on Saturday. He was pretty happy with that time for his first one. He swam for 350 meters, biked 12 miles and ran 6.1 miles.

Latest Book

A month has passed and still nobody posting but me. Hmmm. Here's the latest for the book collection. I downloaded the text from Project Gutenberg and reformatted it in Word. It's 8 inches high and 4 inches across, about 200 pages all together. The cover title plate is also a Word creation.

The next additions to the bookshelf will be a collection of classic horror stories ... Dracula, Frankenstein and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde to start with.