Ruby Ordella Williams Fugal...

... was born August 11th, 1912.

                                      Here's a picture of all of us when she was 44.

Lois suggested we go to the temple today in her honor.  

Neither of us had been through the Oquirrh Mountain temple.  It "glows" when you drive by it.  The word "Oquirrh" means "shining mountain".  The exterior stone is Uinta Gold Granite from the Quanzhou/Xiamen area in China.  (Interior stone is light limestone from Morocco and darker limestone from Egypt.  Woods are rift-cut white oak from Indiana and Kentucky. Veneers are white oak and sycamore from the German Alps.)  It's very small - 50 chairs in the endowment rooms.  It was swamped with weddings - hard to find a place to park - but we got right into a session.

I apparently didn't instruct Lois correctly on taking my picture,

but here's hers, proof we were there:

 It was fun going with Lois, because she's a temple worker and it's always nice to get her perspective.

Before we went we joined the Bunkers from Bunkerville at the Blacksmith shop.  Milt was giving them a tour and called to invite me - Brad Nielson, son of Lyman and Norma (and Bishop of the Third Ward in the building next to me), was dressed up and ran one of the coal fires for the kids to brand themselves a small piece of wood, about the same as when we did brands for our reunion keychains back in the day.  He used the same family brand, the boot.  Some of the kids did merit badges.  It was cool.  Well ... hot! actually.

We took the tour of Chris's house.  My neighbor has done some cool stuff in there - including stripping the stucco from one of the living room walls to expose the double brick, and the whole house has the restored original wooden floors.  I'm jealous, of course, she still has the pocket door.  Hers is two doors, which meet in the middle.  We went up to the single room upstairs with the east and west dormer windows. There was not one closet in the whole house when my neighbor bought it.  (She added a large one across the whole east wall in the master bedroom, and cubby closets along one short wall in the dormer room.

Roger Bunker's wife, Regina, put pictures of the remodeled interior in a book she made - can purchase it from Shutterfly, and she put several pages in it of the Niels journal I typed, that referred to Chris.  She missed a few though - said she read it solid for a day-and-a-half, long into the night, was under the gun to publish in time for the reunion.  Too bad she wasn't computer savvy enough to realize she could word search it.  (I didn't point that out.)  She used some of the pictures I included and she had pictures we don't have.  I made my neighbor swear she'll get her email address when she toured after us, so I can get the pictures, and I can at minimum point out where in it she can find the part where Chris makes up his mind to find himself a wife and picks Delilah, and the part where he describes building the house.  I gave Milt the single sheet of shop stationery, but I tried to duplicate it on the computer so it looked very close, and put it in the journal pdf.  She put it in the book, which pleased me.  The journal, BTW, is at www.fugal.net.

We found out the Sonny Fugal (Alan) is married to Paul Fugal's first wife, Judy!  Lives in American Fork.  We found out that even after Daddy died, Norma would have Milt service her car.  I was talking about how she "made" Dan plant new trees in front of my house and how I worried about the tree trucks becoming bigger than the space they're in.  (Which was prompted by his memory of Delbert visiting and digging out all the sidewalk cement slabs, to flatten out the tree roots underneath.)  Milt said Norma would walk out and tell him it was time to service her car and then stand there, giving him the message that he was to do it NOW.  Made us laugh.

Great day.  Thanks, Mom (and Lois).  Love you!

[Oh my goodness! (Or Oh my stars! as Mom's sisters would say.)  It's late and I'm lazy, so I was looking online for a picture of Chris Fugal's house and I found a ZILLION Fugal pictures at:

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=mediaphotopublic&rank=1&sbo=t&gsbco=Sweden&gsln=Fugell&gss=angs-d&gl=&gst=

You gotta take a look at Jan Fugal ... for one.  Some of Andreas I've never seen before.  There's a Martha Fugal.  ??  And one of Christian Fugl I don't think I've seen.]

Nibley Would Be Appalled!

Need a do-over now I know more.

Diane wanted me to come up to specifically do three things:

Eat at The Cheesecake Factory;

Watch the dancing fountain,

which I found out from her, is synced to music on the hour evenings;

Go to a free park concert.

We looked at this from across the street when Jewel came up last week.

Much more dramatic up close!

The almost roar of cool rushing waters.

The water is from artesian wells.

This is the eastern side of the top of the buiding,

what the pioneers saw as they came out of mountains.

The western side represents what they came into -

the desert (no picture).

In front of this fountain:

One of the pictures etched into the black marble is one of David O. McKay.

Before Diane got off work, I took advantage of a very good sale at:

 Here's the appalled part (sorry, Hugh, I was duly impressed):

 The fanciest Deseret Book (I'm a bettin') in existence.

 Note the half-gallon Ball jar lighting.

 Display/ad for a smart phone LDS tools app.

 Books of Mormon in all the published languages.

Lots of Kenneth Packard bronzes, such as:

Can't remember the price on this one, but there was one marked $16,000.

The 7 p.m. "show"
(they add fire - Diane figures must be when it gets dark):

                                          

There are two restaurants at City Creek that serve liquor, 

The Cheesecake Factory and Texas de Brazil.

(Jewel says both are in Vegas.)
They agreed not to display it.

They are also both open on Sunday, the only establishments

in the mall which are.

Diane said the church required them to purchase their property.

Everything else is owned by the church,
liquor-free and closed on Sunday.

It was interesting seeing The Cheesecake Factory with Jewel at lunchtime,

then with Diane at dinnertime - very dramatic lighting changes.

One last thing I learned for our next visit, Jewel:

Right in front of The Cheesecake Factory inside the food court

there is a huge dinosaur land playground.

Amazing:

I found out the retractable roof is opened only when the weather is mild -

Otherwise it's closed to retain heat/AC.

Hayden would have appreciated this:

Falcon nest on Hotel Utah ... I mean The Joseph Smith Building.

Diane says you can watch them on webcam.

When Jewel and kids were on top of the Church Office Building

(where Diane works), I snapped this:

It's across the street, east, the seating for free concerts,

Brigham Young Park, part of his original farm.

Demonstrates the art of irrigation:

We saw Mercy River.

(Would love to go back to Fire on the Mountain

August 24th, but I'll be buried and holed up at work by then.)

Last treat of the day was leaving

the Conference Center parking lot only

to discover it was an unannounced free day

(normally $10)!

... the Beyond Part Plus

I just want to bear testimony to blessing of bearing testimony!  And beg forgiveness from Jewel if she is  feeling self-conscious about me belaboringly reporting on her life!  (But remember, Jewel, the readership is small and friendly.)

My first reaction to her Bishop asking her to share her testimony with ALL the YM and YW was that it was going to change the course of her already well prepared lesson for the girls two days later!  And, per usual, my limited thinking was getting in the way of Priesthood progress.

I mentioned she had a handout and related treat (gummy bears for "bear" your testimony):

... the Beyond Part

Just a P.S. to the last post.  Jewel is giving a lesson in YW Sunday on testimony.  She has been working on it for a long time.  Johnny helped her download a Mormon Message movie she wants to share, she has a scripture handout she craftily created, and a coordinated treat.  She borrowed my Joseph Smith statue (which she gave me years ago), and she has a picture of Christ which goes along with the Mormon Message (The Living Christ).

To top that, the Bishop asked her to share her testimony about going through the temple at the youth leadership meeting this Friday so she's preparing her thoughts for that.  She said one of the precipitous events that got her to the point of doing something about going through the temple was reading this in the Ensign (Jeffrey R. Holland):

"So if you have made covenants, keep them. If you haven’t made them, make them. If you have made them and broken them, repent and repair them. It is never too late so long as the Master of the vineyard says there is time. Please listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit telling you right now, this very moment, that you should accept the atoning gift of the Lord Jesus Christ and enjoy the fellowship of His labor. Don’t delay. It’s getting late."

I wanted that as part of my record keeping.

Memories for a Lifetime ... and Beyond

 Saturday, July 21, 2012, Las Vegas Temple.

 Friends, Kennedy and Kiana,
and several other ward members came through the session.

(Jewel specified low key - the Bishop came, the temple prep leader, the R.S. president.)

Johnny took the kids to a pond early on while we were gone.
Headed that way at 8 a.m. - got home about 2:30 after a stop at Deseret Book.

(The temple will actually entertain guests
who don't go through but want to be there in support,

but part of that is an exterior tour and it was 116 degrees when we came out!)

The family then went to dinner together at BJ's
and we watched We Bought A Zoo.

(Grant flew in Friday night and out early Sunday morning.)

 The sun going down behind Hayden's elementary school.

 Jewel arrived Wednesday p.m.  We had a late lunch as she passed through Provo,
at her old stomping grounds, Brick Oven.
I had a previous engagement with Diane at the Hale
(Crazy About You), and Jewel took the kids to Madagascar.

Hired one of the YW and Thursday morning Jewel and I went through

the nearest temple (3.5 miles from my house).

Then Friday we toured the Salt Lake temple grounds

(Jewel's preferred choice for her second visit, but it was closed -

note the maintenance work below -

I've never seen the windows open before).

We'll be back.

From the top of the Church Office Building (26 floors):

 The Capitol.  Note the homes behind on Ensign Peak.

This chapel (a little more left of where the above photo cuts off)

was built in 1880 on the Brigham Young estate.

In 1973, it was disassembled and moved to the Capitol Hill grounds,

reconstruction complete in 1979.

 Note the trees growing on top of the conference center, and the water fall below.

(Next picture pixelates if enlarged, but so you get the idea.)

When we first entered the Church Office Building, we were introduced to

A 16x66 foot mural of “The Great Commission” covering the east wall,

or as the artist labeled it, “Go Ye Therefore.”

Christ is the centerpiece, and the self-taught artist, Grant Romney Clawson,

copied it from an original work by Harry Anderson.

It was pointed out that Christ’s left foot would remain pointed at us

as we walked the length of the mural,

and Hayden was most impressed by that, asking me more than once

after we left the building if I thought His foot was still following us.

(Absolutely.) 

The Christus, north visitors center, 11 feet tall.

(Raygen thought the sky was scary.)

 City Creek, running through the new 23-acre mall.

 Lunch at The Cheesecake Factory.

 Hayden and Raygen loved this part of the mall.

Inevitably, Raygen got drenched head to toe but reacted happily.

 It was delightful to watch them play.

There was more to see and do, of course -

we watched a bagpiper outside the temple gate

at the head of City Creek while the kids dried off a bit.

Would have taken a carriage ride, but mom has Raygen's nap

down to a science so we headed for home.

(She's not a happy camper when she's short on sleep.)

Explosions of One Kind and Another

Talked to Lucy Sunday.  Sounded like she enjoyed her birthday very much.

Look forward to pictures.

No pictures of Jewel's birthday.

Only ever get to participate if she celebrates it here....

(June's state report can't be entered until the first working day of July.)

I made her a belated banana cream pie.

Had a nice visit with Janeil Monday evening.

 All dressed up and ready to celebrate the 4th!

(Chair a baby gift from her great grandparents.)

 Dad supervising.

 Mom documenting.

 Pictures at the park.

Pancake breakfast!  (Tradition.)

 Mom and Dad's gift.

 Grandmommy & Pop's gift (great grandparents).

 Balloon wars with G-mom.

 Little Miss Princess and Uncle Seth.

(As usual, there were family pictures I was looking forward to but were too blurry.)

Getting ready to make a wish!

The garden grew like a weed, in my absence!

(Left a drip hose on it.)

Last year I planted four tomato plants.

"Cut back" two too, but they are still going nuts!

 First attempt at cauliflower (yes, it's yellow).

The leaves are supposed to shade the head, and they're doing their job so far!

(And if they don't, there's aways the tomato plant foliage....