Harwoods.org

First off, HAPPY FATHER’S DAY to all of the Dads/Granddads in our family.

I’m going to run this update in reverse. Yesterday we spent the day spring cleaning, I also went to the college and pulled some of my work out of the kiln. I may post some pictures of it on my portfolio site. Friday Inez and I took the kids up Provo Canyon to Vivian Park for a picnic. Afterwards on our way home we took a little detour and found the Utah Valley overlook, Utah Valley doesn’t look quite so busy from up there. And it looks allot greener, there are more trees here than I have pictured in my mind.

Thursday Inez and the kids went with Lisa and Sierra McKnight to Welfare Square. Inez said this is not a place to take kids, it is a bit boring (ok allot boring.) Lisa and Sierra are doing well, Sierra has grown allot (including hair) she now talks and says things like “No, no, ‘Nez” It makes Inez laugh just thinking about it.

Thursday I fired my first gas kiln firing. It took about 12 hours to reach cone 10 (~2350 Degrees Fahrenheit) when it is that hot inside the kiln it sure is hard to see the cone packs. It wasn’t as hard as I though it would be. I think as far as gas firings go, it was harder to load the kiln. The hardest part of the whole ordeal is waiting for the kiln to cool enough to open so I can see how my work turned out. I did some testing with glazes this go-round and the temmoku glaze turned out awesome on the porcelain, while my rutile blue still needs some tweaking. I had another first Thursday as I was invited to sit in as a member of an Eagle Scout Board of Review. That was a neat experiance, the last time I participated in an Eagle Board of Review I was the Eagle Candidate.

School is almost out for me (Jerel) I have about 1/2 a week left. After that it will be Family, Work and Fishing all summer till school starts in August.

Inez took the kids to the Wasatch Symphony Thursday night, she says that she and Faythe really enjoyed it. The played scores from a few contemporary sources, Lord of the Rings, Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, etc. Faythe recognized the songs and where they were from. Esperanza just wanted to make noise and couldn’t understand why she wasn’t allowed to eat in the theater.

Ok, so I know it’s Tuesday and I haven’t written on last weeks activities yet. So let me recap what happened. For me (Jerel) there was school as usual, I did skip class on Thursday to go fishing. This is the only time all term that I missed a class and it was for a good reason. Charlie Ethington a.k.a. Rod Killer, one of my mission companions, was in town for a business conference from Arizona. Kevin Wright, one of our mutual mission companions took us fly-fishing up on his families property in Duchesne. Unfortunately the fish weren’t too interested in what we were offering, it could be the freak storm that moved through last Wednesday and Thursday threw them off, at least that is my story and I am sticking to it.

Towards the beginning of the week the kids spent a little time in the wading pool. Inez caught them with the camera. Both those kids can be real cheese-balls.

Friday Inez took the kids to Heritage Park, “This is the Place.” The kids got to do a bunch of activities. They learned about spinning wool, they made bread and attended a pioneer school. They also rode some ponies and in a wagon. They played some of the games that pioneer children played. And Esperanza got to do laundry the pioneer way.

Friday afternoon we drove up and had dinner with Randy and Sarah. Randy’s Ram Charger is coming along quite nicely. I don’t remember what we did on Saturday. Anyhow that’s all for last week, as always we have posted pictures in the photo-gallery so take a trip over there and look around. You will have to have a user account set up to see our family pictures, if you need help with getting one set up, or cannot remember your username/password email or call Jerel and he will help you out.

– Jerel

Where to start? This past Monday (Memorial Day Observed) we had Faythe’s birthday party. His cousins came to the party along with his Aunt Sarah and Uncle Randy. We barbecued hot dogs and Mamma-Burgers, Inez made hamburgers that were to die for, I also brewed some rootbeer for our culinary delight. The kids played, Randy and I fell into a food coma after eating our burgers. Inez and Sarah folded Oragami boxes and put them on a string of christmas lights as a decoration for the party. It was a great time. I think the children enjoyed themselves as well.

Tuesday evening I (Jerel) went with a friend of mine, Todd Schreiner, to a Skinny Puppy concert. Thinking back this is the third concert I have ever been to. They played in Salt Lake City. This being my third concert I have attended I made the mistake of not bringing ear plugs, no laughing, I did not need ear plugs due to the music being bad (though some of you reading this would argue that point, you know who you are) but the dB level of the concert. My ears stopped ringing after 3 days. I had a pretty good time. I had gone fishing with another friend of mine a few days earlier and while we were talking about music and concerts I mentioned to him that there were just a few bands that I wanted to see and skinny puppy was one of them. I was not disappointed (except in their choice of an opening band.)

Thursday, May 31st Inez took the children to the Beehive House and Temple Square. They learned about Brigham Young and his household. They also got to go through the Tabernacle at Temple Square. During the tour they were given the pin drop demonstration of the acoustics at the temple. Inez says that they had a good tour. The “cool” part of the house (the back) was built after the railroad had been completed. She thought it was interesting the differences between the front and back parts of the home. The front was “rustic” you could tell that it was all handmade, pioneer type construction, whereas the back had allot more color and was filed with manufactured furniture. The other interesting part was being able the read the journal entries of Brigham’s youngest daughter and her descriptions of their family gatherings. Inez said that the feelings you get about Brigham Young from reading church histories and other peoples accounts is that he comes across cold and practical, whereas when you read his daughters account of him, he was a very loving father who cared for his family very much.

This past Friday was the father and sons campout for our ward I gave faythe the option of going to sand mountain with the rest of the ward or he and I could spend some time one on one time camping elsewhere. He wanted to spend time with just me (of which I have no complaints) so we packed up and went to the Gooseberry Campgounds in the Manti-La Sal National Forest. The drive took about an hour, once there we picked a campsite and set up the tent, then we drove bout a mile down the road to the Gooseberry Reservoir and went fishing. There wasn’t any “action”, the fish just weren’t biting. So after an hour or so we went back to camp and I taught Faythe about setting up camp fires. We did some prep-work on the campfire and our preparations paid off as it only took one match to light the fire. Faythe picked the dinner menu so we had “Pigs in a Blanket”, I introduced him to s’mores. After listening to a chapter from The Book of Mormon on my iPod we drifted off to sleep. The birds woke us up around 5 a.m. I think they were singing to keep themselves warm. After laying in our sleeping bags working up the courage to get our day clothes on and go fishing. Eventually we got in the truck and headed back to the lake. The air was so cold that the water had steam coming off of it. As we were fishing I had to keep knocking the ice out of our guides. After 10 - 15 minutes Faythe decided that he had had enough of the cold and headed back to the truck. I decided to keep fly-fishing.

Soon I couldn’t handle the cold either and went back to the truck, we sat with the truck idling waiting for the sun to come up. After the sun came up we went fishing again. After a few hours of casting (we weren’t catching) we headed back to camp, cooked breakfast and then packed up the truck. On the way to the camp I noticed another road that would take us back to the main highway, I decided to head back that way instead of the way we came in. Two hours later we made it to the highway. The scenic route was 28 miles of dirt road. The road wound over ridges and down valleys, at times it felt like I was driving on the “Top” of the world. That route added a couple of hours to our trip home, but it was worth the drive.  All in all it was a great camping trip.

The weeekend before all of us had gone camping up at the Rock Cliff Campground next to the mouth of the Upper Provo River and Jordenelle Reservoir.  We had a great time up there, Faythe and Esperanza got to go to a Junior Ranger activity where they learned about Birds of Prey. We also saw a Momma Moose and her calf.  Inez and the Kids saw some eagles and we had some prarie dogs as companions in our campsite.

That is pretty much what has been happening with us.  I’m going to try to make a weekly posting (not a weakly) posting every Sunday.  Please feel free to drop us a line and let us know what is happening with you.  Our email addresses are easy it is our first-name@harwoods.org, just replace the first-name with whomever you want to send the email to.