My Dad Comes to Visit

I got back from my Sedona trip Monday morning, the same time as Raef and Zach headed out for their very first real scout camp. They went to Bear Lake for the entire week. I really missed them. It made me realize even more how much they do for our family. They are so important and it is a big void when they are gone. But I am grateful they could go and grow on their own. When they came back, they were both happy and had a positive experience. That was a relief for me. I didn't see them for about 10 days. I have never gone that long without seeing them. Wowzers.

While they were gone, my dad came to town to visit everyone. He arrived Tuesday morning. I picked him up at the airport and then we went to City Creek so that he could see it. Then we met Jamie at Gateway and had lunch with him. 

My dad has picked up a new hobby: photography. He absolutely loves it and it coincides well with his love of long drives. On Wednesday we drove the Alpine Loop. We stopped at different vistas for some photo opportunities and then let the kids get out at Bridal Veil Falls.

There was a trout pond and a man was there with a huge bag of fish food. He was letting kids have some to feed the fish. My kids just loved it!

We ended up in Provo and first stopped at the BYU Paleontology Museum. It is right next to the football stadium and is free! I couldn't believe how much Harry, Julia, and Eli loved this museum. They were ecstatic looking at the specimens and wanted me to see everything as well.

We then went to the campus and wandered around the Wilkinson Center and ate lunch at the Cougar Eat. I can't believe how much I remembered from when I was a five year-old living in Provo, but I did.  We also stopped at the library because dad was trying to find a portrait of one of his professors. He couldn't find it, but it was still fun to try. Dad enjoyed buying my kids treats. Nothing has really changed in that department!

We also met up with Catye and Mike at a playground in the area and every night Jamie, Leah, Catye, and Mike and their kids came around for dinner; all or some of them for every night dad was in town.

On Friday, we hit the road for another drive. This time it was the Golden Spike National Historic Park. Holy cow, I had just been there last month, right? Sheesh. But his two choices were the Golden Spike or Wyoming. I can tell you right now, there is nothing in Wyoming! No way! Plus, it was farther, so I settled for this drive.

We got home around 5 pm and Rinar, Raef, and Zach were all waiting to greet us. It was a happy reunion. We were able to play 8 and Back with dad and my siblings. Dad really wanted to play that game with everyone. And no surprise here, but Rinar won again.

I am very grateful that I could spend this time with my father. It has been a long time coming. I hope it can be a more frequent occurrence in the future.

The Best Dinner Ever

It had been a weary 3 years. First it was Africa, then the peninsula of Italy. And then in the past four months, the terrifying and bloody Utah Beach at Normandy in France. Private Carpenter was war-weary. He had trodden many hills of the European continent and seen much bloodshed and heart ache. The war seemed to have no end. But in the past 4 months, things had looked promising. The US army and its Allies raced across France, liberating the country swiftly, and without too much resistance. There would soon be a conclusion to all of this violence and horror. Germany would be defeated and Private Carpenter would be back in Michigan shortly.

But then it was December 16th, and another test of endurance and survival would be placed before him and the thousands of other American boys fighting for liberation and justice. Hitler desperately tried to regain his footing in France and Belgium by pushing the Allied forces back in a surprise attack against a mostly American force in the Ardennes Forest. Over 18,000 Americans soldiers lost their lives and many more were wounded.  The weather was bitterly cold and snow blanketed the landscape. It became the bloodiest battle of the entire war, called the Battle of the Bulge.

Less than two weeks before Christmas, when things were looking promising for a return to America, death was near again. Bombs, explosions, and chaos were everywhere with this furious deluge, a counteroffensive that put the Allies on their heels. Day after day, the fighting was fierce as the Americans tried to regain the ground that had been lost. The weather was freezing and the soldiers were not equipped for this surprise offensive.  But they kept fighting to push back the Nazis, staying out in frozen foxholes, stubbornly fighting. Private Carpenter kept fighting, too.

General Patton wanted his men of the Third Army to have a hot turkey dinner for Christmas Day. He knew that they needed to boost to help them get through this arduous time. After weeks of cold food, eaten on the frozen ground, shells incessantly exploding all around, Patton was able to make it happen for at least some of the troops. For others, it was SOS, meat and gravy over toast. It wasn't quite as festive or fancy as a turkey dinner. Private Carpenter didn't get a hot turkey dinner. But he did get a hot plate of SOS. 

It was the best dinner he ever had.

So, on this Christmas Eve, we eat SOS in honor of Grandpa Carpenter and all the men through the ages who have given much so that we can live in peace and remember a newborn babe, lying in a manger.

Merry Christmas and peace on Earth!

Memorial Day Remembered

In honor of Memorial Day, I want to remember my grandfather, Eugene Carpenter. He was one of the millions of Americans that put his life on the line for the sake of freedom. Grandpa Carpenter fought in World War II, in the European theater. He went everywhere: Africa, Italy, Normandy, and all through Europe. He was a part of the D-Day invasion...Utah beach, 5th wave. Grandpa didn't get to see Paris, France because he quickly bypassed it on the way to the Battle of the Bulge. It was a long, rough battle in the freezing cold. He persevered and survived.

Grandpa was a liberator. His unit discovered a concentration camp in Buchenwald, Germany. He never talked about it, except one time to my father. What could that have possibly been like to find that horror and atrocity, being a young man from a small town in Michigan?


Oh, how grateful I am for his service to our country. And for all of the men and women who have come before him and after him. We live in a country that is the bastion of freedom. We don't conquer people, we liberate them! This is what my grandfather did.

God Bless America.