SO . . . IS THERE LIFE AFTER TREKKING?

Even though regular trekking is over for this summer we still work hard all day long and have hundreds of visitors, but in the evenings we are beginning to enjoy the many "end of summer" activities.

  

The Martin's Cove missionaries had their Family Home Evening Talent Show,

and we were treated to the Fabulous Blues Brothers . . .

. . . and Sister Ames doing a reprisal of last years' chicken song, plus

Elder Taylor, Jr., playing his beautiful clarinet solo . . .

. . . and the Dir-Trek-FM Sisters with their rendition of Count Your Many Wrinkles. 

 We heard from the Bushman's district as they sang parodies of Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam and When We're Helping We're Happy . . .

. . . and from our dedicated Bug Sprayers 
(to whom we are all indebted for a nearly bug-free summer) 
plus Sister Grover's animated retelling of The Mitten by Jan Brett 
and songs written by Elder Bushman during his Prison Days. (I think that was a joke!)

 We also had a Chili Cook-Off and the winners were:
Sister Judd for her Rib-Ticklin ' Red Chili, 
Sister Young for her White Chicken-Lickin' Good Chili, 
Sister Bingham for her Rip-Roarin' Mouth-Burnin' Stomach-Churnin' Chili,
and Sister Erekson, who won the People's Choice Award.

We had lots of fun on our Girls' Day Out in Casper . . .

 It had to make Christopher & Banks happy
that they opened their doors at 9:00 am for us!

Then we went to Guadalajara's for lunch - delicious!

 Look how cute their chairs are!

 But we paid for our day of fun, as the power was out for 16 hours starting that night, and the next day it poured all day long!

 It hasn't rained on us this much since we've been here,
and we worried that the buildings would flood.

 Happily it all cleared up and warmed up,

but sadly the Martineaus left us to go home for health reasons.

We can always find a reason to get together to visit, laugh, and eat (of course!)  
Thursday night the Ames made delicious pizza crust dough 
and we "Homestead Missionaries" made our own gourmet pizzas. 

We've both gained so much weight that when it is time for US to be released 

they will just take us to the top of the Continental Divide, 

give us a push, and we will roll all the way home to Salt Lake!

And this is just the beginning of the end!