Wow, its been a big month in the Crandall household! Last month at this time we were just getting ready for our trip to the southern Oregon coast. But before we could escape, I got a call from the executive secretary telling me that the bishop wanted to see me and Cal. Uh, oh. I did not figure he was just calling us in to tell us how much he appreciated us being in the ward. So just like that, in spite of my efforts to hide, I am now the education counselor in our ward Relief Society presidency. And just to make sure I was paying attention to that message about trying to lay low, Cal and I were called to be assistant coordinators on our temple shift last night. So now we will be working every week in the temple and as my RS president said, well you are already there anyway, you might as well be bossy!

We did manage to have two great trips before all this came cascading down in our laps. First, we stayed at Harris Beach State Park which is just north of Brookings. As we were driving down Hwy 101 the weather was absolutely gorgeous. Not a cloud in the sky. We got a great view of the area on our way down and arrived in time for a beautiful sunset. The next day it was quite foggy, but we drove inland for a hike, where the temperature must have been in the 90’s. When we came back to the trailer, it was still foggy. The next day, the same thing. We drive into Brookings that day, and you could actually see the edge of the fog, just east of the coast maybe a few hundred yards. The only time we saw clear sky again was when we went slightly inland but we did manage to have a great time anyway, tromping on the beach, taking hikes in the area, and getting down into northern California to see the redwoods.

We got back on Tuesday and left Friday afternoon for SLC. Mom and Dean really made that a great trip for us. We got to spend time seeing a little piece of what missionary life is like, got to spend time in the FHL, spent some time in the Daughters of the Pioneers Museum and learned the President Packer is an ornithologist as well as an artist, saw lots of family at the Taylors, visited with Cal’s brother and Aunt Norma and Uncle Ralph, saw and attended Conference and even had time to meet Sherry Dew! Too bad we had to come home.

Last Sunday we had a giant pizza party at our house and invited all the Smiths in the area (ha, ha, just the family), with Melissa in charge of the pizza recipes so that they were edible. It was great fun and all were fulfilled.

I’m not sure we can top this eventful month for awhile, but it’s actually okay if things settle down just a bit. Hope everyone is well.

posted by Cathy Crandall at 3:36 PM