California Hall of Fame

Last Monday, 12 Californians were inducted in the CA Hall of Fame, an annual ceremony honoring individuals for their contributions to California and the world at large. This event is held every year at the California Museum for History, Women and the Arts, in downtown Sacramento with the Governor and First Lady hosting. Those individuals inducted were: Dave Brubeck, Jane Fonda, Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, Robert Graham, Quincy Jones, Jack LaLanne, Dorothea Lange, Julia Morgan, Jack Nicholson, Linus Pauling, Leland Stanford and Alice Waters. There is an exhibit about the inductees with artifacts from their lives. Some of the highlights of this years inductees are Leland Stanford's carriage, in addition to the actually golden spike; Julia Morgan's drafting table, a reading room devoted to Dr. Seuss and Jack LaLanne's Glamour-Stretcher. Helen, Allison and Dan were very fortunate to be able to volunteer at the event with Erin.

Gavin's Best Christmas Party

Gavin was able to go to the 18th annual Brush Christmas Party this year. It was his first chance to see the plethora of desserts that Mary (a professional food stylist) had prepared. It was a crisp, cool night so we sat near the fire on their back porch and enjoyed good company and incredible food.

In addition to seeing Santa, who made a timely appearance, Gavin tried to shake hands with the life-size snowman by the front door.

These are just a small portion of the dessert treats that we sampled (and sampled and sampled). Gavin's eyes truly grew twice their normal size when he saw all of this dessert.

Live From New York. . . . .

It's Saturday Night Live!! On Saturday, Jeannie and three of her friends from the Academy took the train to New York City to be in the audience for Saturday Night Live. The host that evening was John Malkovich and the kids agreed that it was a very funny performance. Saturday Night Live has been on the air since 1975. The kids also stopped by Rockefeller Plaza to see the ginormous Christmas tree, towering 72 ft. high. As they returned to the Academy early Sunday morning, it started to snow on I-95. Looks like Jeannie will get her first opportunity to drive in snowy weather this winter!

Breakfast with Santa

This morning was the annual Rotary Breakfast with Santa. While Margaret, a member of the Rotary Club, was in the kitchen cooking pancakes and sausage, the family had breakfast and then visited with friends and Santa.

Gavin and Megan went to see Santa and Mrs. Claus. Initially, Gavin wasn't very anxious to go near this strange man in a red suit (a lot of it had to do with Gavin cutting several mollars) but with Mom there it was O.K.

Gavin got to pick out a book from Santa and naturally it was his favorite, Thomas the Train. He is showing his book to friends, Elizabeth and Emily Golding. They helped him get over his fear of Santa because they were both so excited to see Santa.

Gavin with his friends, Emily and Elizabeth, who were attired in their beautiful dresses.

A Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day was marvelous in Morro Bay. We were able to sit out on the new deck in the sunshine and enjoy our breakfast. Brad's parents from Ohio joined the Ferguson Family and there was a total of 28 family members present.

Megan made her delicious apple pie for dessert. Shown here are Erin and Gavin in the "splash zone", with the juice from the apples spinning off when Meg was peeling them.

Most of us took a 5 mile walk from the house all the way down to the end of the Morro Strand Beach. Here was the "jump" picture.

We also had some of the kids do the traditional pyramid on the beach, complaining about it the whole time.

Finally, we all gathered for dinner, with family members coming from Chicago, Connecticut, Hawaii, Utah, and Ohio. It was a great day and a lot of fun to be with family. We have a lot to give thanks for.

Long Days in Orlando

On one day, did a lot at the conference. The last picture in this post of all of us in the park we helped build should be the first. Initially, we all worked at a KaBoom park project for the National League of Cities, making a park for children in an area that didn't have a park. When that was done about 2 p.m. we went to hear the session speaker, New York Times writer, Thomas Friedman, speak about the U.S. being a leader in green technology. Finally, late in the afternoon we went to Disney's Animal Kingdom to go on a couple of rides and have dinner.

On the Safari ride, we got to see plenty of animals up close and personal, like these rhinos. The vehicles that we rode around this huge jungle-brush area are shown below.


Gavin looks a little bit dubious about one of the Disney characters.

Michigan and Orlando

These pictures are posted backwards. . .the first one is the Gavin and Meg watching the EPCOT fireworks show at the end of the day.

Meg, Danny and Gavin are pictured in front of the Stave church in the Norway section of EPCOT. Danny found out that his memory of Norwegian was pretty good as he had no trouble talking with all of the Norwegian employees in this area.

Gavin found a remote-control car with McGruff. . .and he thought that he was pushing it but it was being controlled by the man behind a curtain.

When we were in Michigan, James, Megster, and Brielle went to the Rain Forest Cafe for the first time and had the utterly decadent Volcano for dessert. Brielle liked looking at the fish in the aquarium there.

Ian and Roxy Came to Town

This last weekend Evan and I were were lucky enough to have a visit from Ian and Roxy, my good friend that I met while we were both doing our internships in Brussels (she is from Logan, Utah). We had a weekend packed with good times, tons of laughs, and good memories.

We went to the Mount Timpanogas Temple on Saturday morning. Hillary Miller (a good friend from Southern California) joined us that early morning.

On Friday night we went to Cafe Rio and then played a really fun game - Loaded Questions. It was Roxy's first time at Cafe Rio - I think we converted her. Ian's friend Amy Stringer came with us and was the one who introduced us to the game.

Roxy brought her violin and she and Hillary played for us. We all really enjoyed the beautiful music.

Here is a picture of the three girls on the balcony at the Townhouse. It was a beautiful day - perfect for the BYU football game. We are excited for when Ian and Roxy can visit again!

How do you spend your 58th wedding anniversary?

Grammie and Grampie decided that spending 14 hours working the polls on Election Day 2008 would be a memorable way to spend their 58th wedding anniversary. Margaret worked with them, and Meg and Gavin stopped by to give all the poll workers freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and milk. We ended up having a great time as it was busy all day long, due to the record voter turnout in California.

Pumpkin Halloween

Gavin was a pumpkin for Halloween. He enjoyed dressing up much more than we thought he would. Dan was the Penguin from the Batman cartoon series. Each team in his office dressed up in a different theme. After dinner the three of us went to our church Halloween party and then did a little trick-or-treating. It was a fun evening.

Colorado Halloween

What better place to spend Halloween than in a town with plenty of ghosts in Colorado. I flew up to Denver to visit Ian and we drove up into the old mining town of Leadville. Shown in this picture is what remains of this "Cloud City" (elevation 10, 152) that once boasted a population of 60,000 people in the 1880's (due to mostly silver mining). Today only about 3000 residents remain.

Ian is standing on old rail boards that lead out of a mine shaft at one of the old abandoned mines. Behind him is Mosquito Pass, one of the roads used to haul the ore back down to Denver and Pueblo. The pass was dirt and closed for the winter so we thought it better to not try and go over it.

One of the great stories of wealth, made and lost, is that of the Tabor family. H.A.W. Tabor and the saloon girl, Baby Doe, made millions from this silver mine that Ian and I are standing near. When the U.S. government went on the gold standard in 1893, silver lost much of its value and the Matchless Mine of the Tabors became worthless.

This is a photo of Harrison Avenue (the main street) in Leadville. Halloween is huge here and people of all ages dress in costumes and cruise the streets.

Ian and I went to this haunted house which is called Stapleton Manor, later that night. It doesn't look nearly as scary in the daytime but let me tell you, it scared me a lot. The manor is behind this little blue house - scary masked people with chainsaws, people jumping out at you from bushes, blackened hallways, lasers, etc. It all made for a very memorable Halloween.

San Antonio

Last week I had the opportunity to go to the National Collegiate Honors Council conference in San Antonio. As president of the Honors Student Advisory Council at BYU, I went to this conference with the director of the Honors Program, the administrative assistant, and another student that is on HSAC. We went to many sessions and learned a ton to take back to BYU with us.


We did explore the city a little - much of it part of the conference - and enjoyed all that San Antonio had to offer. Our hotel was right on the Riverwalk and very close to the Alamo. This is a picture of Daniel (the other student) and me at the Alamo

We ate along the Riverwalk one night and really enjoyed the beautiful setting.

After some exploring of the city for the conference I reported back for our group.

We tried a lot of the local cuisine while in San Antonio, including alligator tail!

Punkin Fun

Karen and I tried our best to make our jack-o-lantern as scary as possible, but I don't know if we succeeded or not. While jamming to Josh Groban and eating Extreme Moosetracks, the madness began. The scariest thing of the night may have been Karen with a knife in her hands after I told her that I voted NO on Proposition 2 in California.


Things got a little messy when we started to deal with some "nose goblins" (thanks Ren and Stimpy).


After a struggle we were able to conquer the pumpkin. While it is not the most ornate of pumpkins, we were content with the outcome.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Fall Fun!

I finally put my pictures on my computer from my new camera (thanks Mom and Dad, Crumps, and Grammy and Grampie!). A couple of weeks ago Evan, Hillary, and Peta took time to help me loosen up from so much studying for an exam. We all went bowling and it was a blast!


This is from the first game of the season when Mom, Dad, Auntie, and Erin were visiting. It was fun to go to the game with Evan, Peta, Hillary, Cynthia, Dad, and Erin.

Camping In The Rockies

This past weekend I tried out my new tent (thank you Crumps and Warnicks) and hit the road with my friends from the Denver area. We headed up to our secret camping spot for a one-nighter and some fun hiking.


Although we didn't have a table we still went through with our plans for tin foil dinners. Soooooo good.

Here is the new beauty being setup. With so much headroom and a huge skylight, how could I say no to REI on this one. Anyone who is willing to make the trek out here will want to try out the tent, even if it means sleeping in Karen's backyard.


This is part of a hike that we went on the next day up to Lost Lake. We followed a river most of the way before getting up to the lake and had breathtaking views of the valley below and the cascading waterfalls.