Hi Everyone. Quite a lot of stuff happening lately. For one thing, we are printing this newsletter on our new computer’s word-processing program. Forgive the lateness; it takes a while to learn a new program.
Visitors... Now that we are living in a desirable place, everyone seems to want to visit us! Fine by us!
In late September Suzanne’s sister, Judy W. visited from Oregon. She was in town for a convention, and stayed with us. Rio got along with her well, from the very beginning. He talked with her constantly. She spent a lot of her time here at various meetings, but while she was with us we took a drive up one of the canyon roads, enjoying the budding fall scenery. We also found a web site on the Internet which shows satellite pictures of various places and we found several of our old homes, which was exciting.
Then in early October Jerry’s mom and brother, [names withheld], came to visit, As usual, Rio was a real charmer. He met them coming off of the plane, in the walkway and ran right up to them. He was a regular chatterbox, talking non-stop for most of the first two days! He really likes his grandma and uncle. We took them up to the mountains too, driving high enough to find snow left over from a recent storm. This was Rio’s first experience with snow, and we enjoyed watching him play with it. We sat on a big rock and had a picnic lunch. Later, we made an impromptu game of finding slabs of shale that were shaped like various states! We also took them to Temple Square, where we learned a lot about the early Mormon history. Suzanne taught them her latest hobby—decorating eggs in the Ukrainian style (we’ll have more on this subject on the next page). They each made beautiful eggs, which they will use as Christmas tree ornaments. It was a nice visit, especially since it had been a year and a half since we last saw each other.
A Little Trek... A few days ago, we took a day trip to Idaho. None of us has been there yet, so we went just to be to a new state for a while. It was only a few hours, but it was a pleasant day. It’s always nice to go somewhere different for a while and to learn some new things
How’s theWeather? The weathermen have been predicting snow for ages now, but it hasn’t gotten down our way yet. In fact, last week we were opening the windows in the daytime to let the fresh, clean mountain air in the house! It is very nippy now and they are predicting snow for this weekend, so we shall see...
The Rio Report... Rio is a riot. He’s at that great age where everything he says or does is funny. We are constantly laughing at him. He is getting better at talking all the time. He speaks well, but a few of his funny mispronunciations art "Pope-a-doppitz" for "Post Office," and "theralal" for "cereal" He now can officially read. We hold two-letter words for him, and he sounds them out perfectly. Sometimes he can read three-letter words too. He used to do this sometimes, hut it was never regular like it is now. He doesn’t know many vowels (just A and 0), so his reading vocabulary is limited at this point. Once Suzanne was holding up HO for him while he was busy scribbling. He glanced at the letters, but didn’t say anything, so Suzanne gave up and asked him what he was wilting. Rio replied, "Rio write-a HO!" So we know he is paying attention, even though he doesn’t seem to care! He also enjoys coloring in coloring books, and can name 11 colors. He loves his phonics lessons, and also can sort shapes into categories (size, shape, and color).
     Rio was an old man for Halloween. He called himself a "Happy Grandpa!" He wore a brown, patterned sweater over a white shirt, with brown pants. He carried a homemade cane and wore shoes decorated in "geezer" fashion with brown, felt. We slicked his hair back and sprayed it gray, and we did old man make-up, with dark shadows, pale highlights, and drawn-on wrinkles! He looked really cute. We taught him to say, "In MY day..." and "You kids get out of my yard!" He was getting over a cold, and his voice was scratchy, which made him sound so funny! We went to a costume contest at Wal-Mart, and he won second place out of about 40 kids. He won a gift certificate, so we bought him some Play-Doh, which he LOVES! He calls it "FIay-Doh," and he plays with it all the time.

A Hobby For Eggheads

By Suzanne
     A few months ago I took a short class on the art of decorating eggs in the Ukrainian tradition. These eggs are called pysanky, and they are made with a wax-resist method. You take a tiny funnel-pen (called a kistka), and fill it with beeswax. You melt the wax, then draw tiny wax lines on the egg. When all the lines are drawn, the egg is dipped into the first of several colors. Later, more wax lines are drawn on the first color. You keep drawing and dying the eggs in progressively darker colors, until you get to the final color—usually black or another dark hue. Then all of the wax lines are melted off. The result is a beautifully designed egg, full of intricate designs.
     It is not difficult, but it is time-consuming. One egg can take four hours to make. I’ve made the traditional Ukrainian designs of geometric patterns and I’ve also designed some eggs with pictures on them. It’s great fun.

My Trip to Idaho
Go a Idaho. Blow a stink out. Go a beer restaurant. Go a really restaurant. Rio eat chicken nuggets. Rio eat a burger. Chicken nuggets fall in a street. Go home.

[NOTES: The first restaurant we tried to go to turned out to be a bar...or a "beer restaurant." Rio’s chicken nuggets, placed on top of the car by Mum while she was buckling Rio in, and forgotten, fell into the street when we drove off.]

My Day
Eat hot dogs. Bread and hot dogs. Eat a whole hot dog. Go outside. Break a leaves again. Rio put a leaves in a bag. Ab lawn a grass. Rio lawn a grass. Rio fall off a grass. Leaves fall off a trees up there. Right by here. By us. By Daddy. Snow on a sky. Go home.

[NOTES: "Break a leaves" means "Rake leaves." "Lawn a grass" means "Mow the lawn." Ab is our landlord.]

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