Killer Deer Attack

17 miles from nowhere, a deer jumped right in front of the car as Pam and the kids were headed to Pocatello for a regional CAR conference.

A couple from Utah (in an Odyssey) gave them a ride to a hotel in Burns.  A tow shop moved the car there, and offered to have us give it to them.  After consideration, limited by distance and what I felt was a paucity of help from the local body shop, we felt the decision we would be least likely to regret would be to retrieve and fix the car.  That will also give Esther the opportunity to do "grease therapy" to limit the post-traumatic stress.  That decision having been made, Pam and the kids proceeded on their merry way after being rescued by Emily with help from the Dodges.  I had a very long day today, but Polar is now in our garage.
The 2 pronged buck was not so lucky- he was taken by the sheriff to the local Indian reservation.

Kudos to Esther for not swerving. Kudos to Emily for dropping everything and coming to the rescue- she left a message on my answering machine Thursday night not to worry, she had it covered.

Kudos to the Dodges for use of their van and treating our problem as if it were theirs.
Kudos to mom and dad for loaning a car so Pam and my kids can make it home from Corvallis.
Kudos to my home teacher for use of his truck- his attitude of "what's mine is yours--it's there to be used, make good use of it" is and example of an abundance mentality, which is a step towards the law of consecration.   Another example of selflessness is the patient (and friend from church) that I was late seeing because I had been on the phone about this, so as explanation I told about the situation and he immediately offered to make the drive with me.

Annual crazy tradition

We welcomed Emily home from school with a hike up McLaughlin.  It's over 10 miles round trip with 4000' of elevation gain.  But we don't always wait for the best conditions.  We high-centered the car on a snow drift on the way in, which took some digging to get out.  Fortunately, we were only a 1/4 mile from the trail-head.  The weather was good, but it made for soft snow, and much of the time I sunk in deeper when I went to step off.  Pam lost a shoe in one post hole, and had to dig it out.  Most of the way up the kids broke trail and packed the snow somewhat, but 50 extra lbs of Gideon on my back effected more than my balance.

Skiddles and sandwiches helped, but the biggest boost to morale was the girls leading us in songs.  I'm not necessarily recommending you try mountain climbing at home, but for us, doing something dangerous hard together draws us together.  Near the top, as our energy was failing, I gathered the kids for an important family decision, and this year after some discussion they settled on pizza.  Little Caesar's was closed by the time we got to it,  so I baked some frozen pizza.  But by the time it came out of the oven everyone had crashed for the night, so we had it for lunch today.

I took the kids on a little side-spur to Frey lake, and Zachary showed that he's not always one to take good counsel and wants to test the edge of the ice himself.  Fortunately it wasn't deep water and we quickly got him to safety.


">