Dear Family and Friends,
So much has happened since I wrote last. Three new teachers moved into the school this year, and we are still looking for a history/PE teacher…Owen? Owen? One of the new teachers has a 14 month old boy and his wife taught young elementary grades for five years before moving here. She has a bunch of great materials and ideas for Diana’s teaching this year, which Diana has been stressed about. Any active LDS families are more than welcome here.
The new reading teacher is a guy that is a salty character. It will be fun to have him on the faculty this year. Friday we toured part of the local area where our kids live in a school bus, and this guy was opening emergency exits and jumping out the back of the bus with alarms sounding. Some of the students live 14 dirt road miles from the bus stop. We were on dirt roads for well over an hour to get out there. Several places the road was nearly washed out and the road gets very rough.Our new math teacher is from Vietnam by way of Buffalo, NY and Toronto. It is hard to understand her English. I think we are all a little concerned for her.
We were very excited to learn our good friend Margaret is getting married. She is totally in love with the fellow, and he had better be a good one to be worthy of her. She is a very wonderful person. I will never forget the day I sang her a whole verse from one of Uncle Kracker’s songs. Unfortunately, Margaret will never be able to forget it either. She kept looking down at the table, shaking her head, and saying, “Mahrin, your dad is crazy. Mahrin, your dad is crazy.”
Today on the way to church we came up to stopped traffic and flashing lights a couple of miles from home. Two cars had collided. Three occupants in the smaller car were injured, all locals (Navajos). The other car was tourists. By the time we got there, there were lots of cars, 1 police car and one ambulance. Diana is required to offer assistance as an RN, so we ran up to help. Jim Dandy from our branch was already there helping out, which was a comfort to me. He trains people in CPR and is very good under pressure. He has helped save almost 10 people since becoming a teacher down here using his training. He drives enough, and help is far enough away that he comes across plenty of wrecks where his help is needed.
One of the injured was the son of one of our teachers here. All three were conscious and responding. There was just the passenger to get out by the time I got there. We couldn’t open the door because it was lodged into a sand bank. A police officer grabbed a small shovel from his unit and got the door open. We loaded the lady as carefully as we could onto the backboard and strapped her down. As we carried her, I was at her head, and the ladies carrying on the left side both let go and went to help by her feet, leaving me with all the weight at her head on the left side. There was a big guy lifting by my right arm. It felt like the whole thing was being pushed onto my left hand, and the lady was not a small fry. As we walked through the sand and bushes I was very, very careful and prayerful about my foot placement. The life flight helicopter landed in the road. I was impressed by how soon they got there. From what Jim said, I doubt they even took ½ an hour to get there. That is impressive considering they take off from Page which is 3 hrs by car or Flagstaff which is 4 hrs. All the traffic was blocked. We were there for most of an hour waiting for the road to be cleared. The sacrament speakers were sitting in the car behind us. We got there for the closing song and prayer, and then they did a special sacrament for the families that got there late. They must have improvised something for talks, I don’t know.
Folks in Blanding are pretty shaken up by the plane crash that killed three city council members on Friday morning. Two of them left 4 kids at home each. One had 4 kids under the age of twelve; the other had four under the age of eight. That is no fun at all.
I had Language Arts training Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday evening we went to the Adams’ cabin above Blanding and Monticello. Their cabin is huge and very well set up. They even have a solar panel on their outhouse so you can read Uncle John’s Awwww Inspiring Bathroom Reader after dark. The Adams were up there getting it ready for us when we pulled up. We would have had to pay 500 dollars a night for such service somewhere else. The girls loved it. I got Sister Adams worried that we were going to eat fresh venison for breakfast from her prized grain fed deer that she has trained to walk up to the cabin.
The next day we woke up and went to celebrate Lara’s b-day on 8-8-08 by swimming at the Cortez Recreation Center. It was a blast. The girls loved it. Then we went out for pizza. Just today Lara got a gift of a dolly from Sister Dee, and Lara said, “I can’t believe this day!”
Mahrin is getting a little sense of humor and does a lot of talking out loud, imagining things. Today she was telling her food it was going to go down in her belly. She was taunting the food, really. It was more like a threat.
Sadie has an earache today and went to bed at five p.m. at her own request. I dread the night. Her ear really drained a bit ago, and I don’t know if her Eustachian tubes are still in or if her eardrum broke. Either way, the pressure was off.
I got Adelaide to laugh on Tuesday as we sat in the parking lot of a grocery store in Blanding, waiting for Mom. I wish I had the camera to catch it. She is holding her head erect and making lots of noises like she is trying to talk. Diana says she will be our talker.
Diana is working tons as usual. We were able to buy almost all of our year’s supply at summer’s end, so finding a place for it all has kept her very busy since we got back. Now she has it more organized than ever and it is a comfort to know that we have a bit of a food supply.
I am moving my classroom to one with windows. It looks out on the monuments and I would argue I have the best view of any classroom in the state. I will have to include a picture of it sometime.
Well, we love you and pray for you.
Lewis, Diana and girls.