CHRISTMAS 2008 AT THE WIEBES IN VIRGINIA!!!!

Here we are with Artie and Ninnie! Boy was it cold when we took this. Burrrrr......

Thanks, Laura Lee, for taking the picture. Lois and I couldn't have done it without your help.

















And, here it is at night....


















Dinner with Lois, Don, and Laura Lee: Had a great time entertaining our neighbors. Surf & turf, cold cucumber soup, and finished with my first try at a real desert. What fun!

More pics from Tewksbury...

The 2-stall barn - looking down Fox Holl Road toward the house. The tall pine tree to the left is the one I planted in the early 1970's.

















The white building was JBW jr's original shop in Oldwick from 1961 to 1971. He started in the left side of the building and moved to the right side in the mid-1960's.
















Went to a Whitehouse Wind Symphony rehearsal with Casey Bork. The playing was awesome. So much talent in that group! Casey has been like a father to me since I was 11 years old. A life-long friend, we stay in touch and share a strong bond, both for family and our love of music.
















This is the sign in front of Old Turnpike School, the middle school I attended from 1971 to 1974.

More pictures from Fall 2008:

This is the farm where I grew up on Fox Hill Road, near Oldwick, NJ. The house has been renovated with a garage and new addition off the old living room.

















The barn we built in 1967 looks mostly as it did then. The shed row on the left and the cupola are new.

















This shows the new addition. Many of the trees we had are gone. The apple trees are mostly gone. One pine tree I planted in the early 1970's is over 50 feet high. And, the huge white pine trees on the other side of Fox Hill in front of the house are still there.

















The small barn where I raised chickens and we kept our pony, Patty, is gone, but the 2-stall barn is still there.

















Here is our favorite beagle, Hermionie, pampered puppy, on the couch.

















Blacksburg Community Band at a concert this Fall. I'm playing 1st trombone.

FLOYD FEST 2008:
Had a great time at Floyd Fest this year. This is the local Bluegrass/Folk music festival. Lot's of great talent. Good food, great times. The highlights were the kids playing. This little fiddle player, Adam Larkey, was awesome on the Pickin' Porch!!! I think he is 9 yrs old.

Saw other good acts: Crooked Still was another highlight.
















SUMMER MUSICAL ENTERPRISE: Did "Anything Goes" August, 2008

This shot is with Ellie, our stage director, Charlotte, choral director, and Matt, who played the cameraman and ship's captain.

I had two roles in the Summer Musical Enterprise's production of Anything Goes, a Cole Porter classic.

I was cast as the reporter and the drunk. The only Latter-day Saint on the cast, and they cast me as the drunk... what irony. And, what a fun experience. All the way through, it was a great time. The cast and orchestra were terrific.

An all-around good time.

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The closing shot is after sunset above Fremont Lake.

Dinner with Granma. This restaurant was really low key, and the food was really good. We had a nice time eating in town and visiting. Caught up on things and talked about getting together this Fall... if the airfares aren't too high.

Main Street through town has changed a lot in the past 30 years. Now it's more commercial. Faler's was sold to someone who renamed it, remodeled, made it look like a lot of other grocery stores... another community institution gone.




Lot's of oil rigs on the Mesa. And, lot's of summer travelers rolling through town.

Intro: 2008.

So, this is new to me... blogging. Well, here goes. I have two daughters and one of them sent me a link to her boyfriend's new blog. I thought, an easy way to share pic's with my kids... since they are on the west coast and I'm in Virginia.

SUMMER VACATION 2008:
Here I am on vacation in Wyoming this summer. Best trout fishing in the world. I fish from a kayak. I've been doing this for the past 10 years and love it! A year ago I tried going from Granma's family "ranch" downstream on a 6 hour float. The fishing was the best I ever had and I've been fishing in this part of Wyoming since I was 10!

This summer was just as good as last year. But, I flipped the kayak... for the first time. What a wake-up call.

Anyway, one of my yearly highlights is going out to Granma's and forgetting about the job and east coast rat race. Wyoming... one of the best kept secrets in the USA!