We travelled to Utah and Idaho early this last week to attend the funeral of Harmon Tobler, Lindsey's father-in-law. Harmon was a man I admired immediately, and we have been friends since the kids were engaged. It was a wonderful funeral and it gave the honor due to such a good man. He will be long remembered by his family, friends and the many young men he sponsored and mentored over the years.

On the way back we got a phone call from Mao letting us know that Cathy had given birth to their third child. they had a baby boy on August 18th. He was about 8 lbs., 6 oz., and he was 22 1/2 inches long. They have had a difficult time deciding on a name. When we first talked to them they were going to name him Christian, but they hadn't decided on a middle name. They still were not in agreement on a name when they left the hospital, so they left the name blank on the birth certificate and referred to him as "the baby" or "the boy" for the next couple of days.

After spending a few hours with books about baby names they have seemed to conclude they will name him Landon Luca Hernandez. At least for the time being. I am not sure if we will know for certain until he is officially blessed.

Adam and I were the first members of the family to actually see him. We stopped at the hospital to visit them on our way home from Utah. It was perfect timing on their part which enabled us to see him so soon. The baby was sleeping in his isolette when we got there and Isabella had finally decided to take a nap on a chair in the room, so we did a lot of whispering and took a few pictures without disturbing anybody.

That gives us thirteen boys and thirteen girls who call us Nana & Papa. Who is going to step up and break the tie?

Utah Trip

Two weeks ago, we took a quick trip to Utah with our friends, Gary and Sue Hadley. We left on Thursday and drove straight through, stopping long enough at Mao and Cathy's to have dinner with them. Mao barbequed some steaks and we had a very enjoyable meal with them and the kids. Cathy was finally looking like she might be carrying a baby even though she is eight months along.
We drove to Park City where we stayed at the Hadley family cabin. The next morning we had breakfast in town and then drove to the base of the Uintah mountains past Oakley to the Smith and Morehouse area at the head of the weber river. We had been told of some forest service trails that were particulary nice to ride. We unloaded the four wheelers and took a beautiful ride up in the mountains where we stopped to have a little lunch before heading back down the trail.
The next day we drove to the Homestead Inn for breakfast then made our way over to Strawberry Reservoir and found some dirt roads and trails that headed up into the mountains west of the reservoir. The roads were pretty dusty and dry and not as pretty as the first day, but we had a great ride. No one managed to roll a quad on either day.
We then loaded up the quads and drove to Daniels canyon where we had booked a room at Daniels Summit Lodge. We washed a little dust off of our faces and changed shirts then hurried over to meet with a wrangler that had agreed to take us up into the mountains on his horses. All of the horses were good looking, well mannered animals and we had a great time. We rode for about two and a half hours up into the quakies and pine trees. Because it has been a relatively wet spring and summer the area was very green and lush and quite beautiful. We saw a few deer and lots of deer beds. Our only incident on the trip was when we topped out on the ride and were giving the horses a chance for a breather when suddenly Gary's horse dropped to his knees and started to roll over. Gary managed to avoid getting rolled on but the horse stepped on Gary's foot as it got up which resulted in some pain and a blackened toe nail.
We came down off the mountain, took a quick shower and then met for dinner at the dining area at the lodge. The food was great and the rooms were excellent.
Nancy and I got up fairly early the next day and drove to Sunny's where we helped make some breakfast for the kids and picked up Jade for the trip back to California. We packed a lot of activities into a couple of days and had a great time.