Loony Lady in Lehi

Yikes! Today was a crazy day in Lehi--and thankfully I just missed all of the drama by a few minutes. I drive through Lehi on my way out to Camp Floyd, and after I got to work this morning, Mom called and wondered what time I had driven through town. I said that it had been at about 8:40 a.m. Mom told me that at 8:46 a.m., Lehi police had gotten a call about a crazy driver on Main Street who was acting like she was drunk, so the police followed her and pulled her over at the Texaco gas station next to the I-15 offramp at the Lehi exit. A policeman went over to talk with her, and she pulled out a gun and shot him in the head! His backup officers then shot and killed her. Luckily the police officer survived the ordeal, and after having surgery this afternoon, they think he will be all right. What a freakish lady! I realized that since she was coming east on Main Street, I probably passed her since I was going west on the same street just a few minutes before all of that went down. At first I thought that I should have noticed if someone was driving crazily, but then I remembered that a lot of people drive crazily in Lehi, so I wouldn't have noticed anything out of the ordinary if I did indeed pass her. They closed Main Street for a while today, but by the time I came home this evening the road was open again. What a sad and scary thing!

Books, Birthdays, Cannons, and Catch-up

I have quite the catching up to do on my blog! This past week has been consumed with finishing my Zion book, but . . . I DID IT!!!! I finished the book on Friday at 5:00 p.m.--which is the exact moment it was due :-) Two of the main things I learned at graduate school were 1) how to read very fast and 2) how to successfully finish a project at the last minute--literally. It feels great to have the book finished. I will get the page proofs in a few weeks, which I will then look over and make any changes that need to be made, then after that we just wait for the book to be printed. They're planning to have the books ready to sell in December, which will be cool!

As far as catching up goes, I never had a chance to write about Father's Day! We had a great time here last Sunday with the whole family. As you can see, Sidney especially enjoyed the festivities. We had a delicious grilled salmon dinner to celebrate our favorite dads. I am so grateful for my dad--he's the greatest dad in the whole world!!! He's also a wonderful grandpa, and all of his cute granddaughters love him very much, as do I! Nate and Joel are great dads too.

Eliza, sporting her "I Love Daddy" onesie for the big day, also enjoyed the Father's Day fun.












The next celebration was Camden's #6 birthday! She is such a sweet girl, and I can't believe how big and grown-up she is. Lindy whipped up a tasty dinner for Camden's family party yesterday, and the girls loved the pinata--which was, very appropriately, a fingernail polish bottle :-) Here's Riley taking a big swing--watch your knees, Nate!







Here's the birthday girl with her birthday "cakies"--birthday cake cookies. I am so grateful for all of my cute, cute nieces!








Yesterday I had the experience of participating in my first "History Adventure Camp" at Camp Floyd, for kids ages 8-12. There were 25 kids there, and the day was full of activities--including a Civil War battle. The best part was that I, decked out in my hoop skirt, got to fire the cannon (for real)! :-) First they give me a musket, then a cannon. What's next? Also this past week, on Tuesday, I helped out at Camp Floyd with a school group program. The program they have for schools is really neat and the kids get to make bricks and candles, learn how to march with a musket, learn about the Pony Express, and tour the park. Since we ran out of dresses that day, I got to dress up like an 1857 U.S. soldier! The only bad part about that was wearing wool when it was 95 degrees outside. It was a lot of fun though, and the kids bombarded the gift shop after the activities were through. We seriously sold $450 worth of stuff--most of which came from selling those crystal rock candy suckers. I think instead of going into the history field, I'm just going to open a crystal rock candy sucker store and get rich quick. :-) So, it's been a busy, eventful, and fun week!

Provo Rocks!

I was trying to write this morning, but I began experiencing a severe brain cramp, so I decided to get online for a minute. Sometimes when I switch gears it helps to alleviate my brain blockage. As I was reading the news, I discovered that Kiplinger has listed PROVO, UTAH on its Top 10 list of "Best Cities to Live, Work, and Play!" They said that in their search for "the ten best cities in which to live and work, we sought places with strong economies and abundant jobs, plus reasonable living costs and plenty of fun things to do." Hooray for Provo! Since Orem and Provo are pretty much the same place, hooray for Orem too! I seriously love Utah Valley--it's beautiful here and there truly are a lot of fun things to do (after you finish writing your book). Okay, back to work.

BOOK

I have much to catch-up on here on my blog--Father's Day, dressing up like an 1857 U. S. Army soldier, and selling $450-worth of candy to school children--but that will all have to wait for a few more days because my Zion National Park book has, out of necessity, temporarily consumed my life. My editor called the other day, and a proposition was made for me to finish the book by this Friday instead of next Tuesday. At first I didn't think I could do it, but then Mom and I figured that if I worked it out with my boss at Camp Floyd to switch some of this week's work days to next week, and if I was willing to really buckle down and eat, sleep, and drink Zion National Park, I could do it. Arcadia Publishing will reward me bounteously for turning my book in early (even though I don't understand how four days makes a big difference for them, but obviously it must), so it's worth the extra effort for the next couple of days. They said that they needed my images sent to San Francisco by Thursday morning, and my text e-mailed to my editor in Arizona by Friday morning. So, I stayed up for most of the night last night getting all of the book images ready to be mailed to SF this morning. I got all 199 pictures to fit onto one USB drive, which I sent via UPS overnight air, so it should arrive there by 10:30 tomorrow morning--pretty cool how that works. I have spent the rest of the day writing and will do the same tomorrow to see if I can finish all of the text by Friday. The end is in sight and the book is coming together very well. I wouldn't be able to do it if it wasn't for Mom's help though--she's the best!

Confederates in the Attic of Stagecoach Inn

I'd like to think that if I had lived in Civil War times, I would have been one of those independent-minded, musket-toting women who protected my home from the invading army with my rifle. I think I would have lost the hoop skirt though--you can't do anything in that without knocking somebody down or tripping yourself. Here is musket-toting, hoop skirt-wearing me this morning on Day #2 of the Boy Scout adventure camp. I am posing in front of the non-historic Kawasaki Mule with Sergeant Van--one of the volunteers. We are both holding authentic Italian reproduction 1857 Springfield rifles--pretty cool.

We started out the morning at 7:00 a.m. giving the boys a breakfast of apple fritters, beef jerky, and hot chocolate. Then, we had a flag raising ceremony. The first flag the scouts hoisted up on the flag pole was the 36-star American flag, followed by the first flag of the Confederacy--since 75% of the officers stationed at Camp Floyd in 1861 joined the Confederate Army. It's a good thing that no NAACP people stopped by the park today because they surely would have complained at our leaving the flags, including the Confederate one, up all day. Too many people consider any symbol of the Confederacy to be a sign of pro-slavery sentiment, rather than just looking at it for its historical value. But anyway, I will refrain from going off on a tangent about that.

After the flag ceremony the scouts got to roll their own musket cartridges, then they learned how to fire the real muskets. I was a little concerned about allowing some of those boys to fire any sort of weapon--even if the bullets were made of tissue. But, no mishaps occurred and no small animals died--even though the wild kids aimed at some. The scouts were all decked out in their Civil War kepis and their blue wool jackets, so they looked pretty soldierly. At one point, some kids who were part of a family reunion group there at the park came running over towards us with a handmade sign that said, "The South will Rise Again!" They also had a Confederate battle flag colored with magic markers. That was random. In Mississippi something like that would totally happen, but in Fairfield, Utah? :-)

It was a really fun day at the park, but I was super tired when I got home. I'm also a bit worn out because I pretty much need to have my Zion book finished up and out the door on Monday, June 23. Unfortunately there is much that remains to be done on it, but I keep telling myself that it will be worth it when I'm finished. This evening I came across a great quote from Alta Jolley Halverson that pretty much sums everything up. She said: "Springdale was a little town and still is, but it was even smaller then. Almost everyone was related in one way or another. It was made up of a lot of Giffords, Crawfords, Ruesches, Winders, Hardys, etc." That pretty much describes Springdale :-) Tonight we also got to see some cool fireworks for Orem Summerfest!