post-Thanksgiving

Mink Creek wasps are slowly retiring for the season.  A few still make drowsy visits, often meeting with their demise.  Box elder bugs are awaiting a good freeze, but their activity has lessened somewhat. Grasshoppers have left for warmer climes.  It is amazing how quickly the change can take place.

The community enjoyed a Harvest Hoedown, with a great variety of dances offered.  In addition to regular ballroom dancing, Wynn Costley directed dancers in the old fashioned Virginia Reel and Oh Johnny.  These made for some lively action and fun memories of performing in elementary school events.  The recreation hall was decorated as a barn dance and western garb was the style for the evening.  Refreshments were a variety of pie and ice cream, with nut cups on the side. Laural and Jody Janke were in charge of this event.

Thanksgiving Day in Mink Creek dawned bright and clear.  All day the temperatures were perfect, just a light jacket needed for outdoor activities.  There were some people who came up our canyons seeking the perfect tree to adorn their homes for the Christmas season.  The trees left----in the back of pickups, tied to the tops of cars, roped to 4-wheelers, whatever worked.  The next holiday season is beginning.

Alexis Iverson, daughter of Kurt and Margret Iverson, received a mission call.  She will be serving in the Texas, San Antonio, Mission, English speaking, leaving in early spring of 2013.  Alexis is excited, the first one from Mink Creek ward to receive her papers since the announcement of age change in LDS October Conference.

Kerry and Lacey Christensen and their three little girls took some vacation time in sunny southern California.  They managed to see several tourist highlights.  The favored spot for the girls was Sea World, visited over and over again.   There was much water splashing that they enjoyed.

Thanksgiving holidays brought visitors to Mink Creek.  At the Bob Erickson household were two families:  Jay and Kristin Collins and children from Lakeview, OR, including their daughter Bailey Collins who is attending BYU/Idaho, and Mark and Carla Nielsen and boys from American Fork, UT.  Laural and Jody Janke's family, Mink Creek residents joined the group.

There were plenty of other visitors over that past weekend.  However, those names will keep until the printed version of next week’s Citizen since I more than  met the 300 word limit for the paper’s column.   Those of you who read the online version get my  extra rambling thoughts.

Those Christmas trees are continuing to go down to the flatlands.  Every day there are outfits toting a lovely green tree. It is a tradition of long standing with many families.  How nice that we have those lovely evergreens in our backyard.

Leftovers from Thanksgiving were gratefully used by homemakers in our community.  Now it is time to get back into the normal routine of “What to fix for___.”  It is a question that never goes away.  How wonderful it is to have food to fix!

It has felt a little unusual to have a whole week of November left after the holiday.  Christmas lights are coming out, decorations starting to sprout, and it is still November.  Of course the businesses have been hawking Christmas gifts and décor since before Halloween.  Better not start on that topic!  The real December is just a couple of days hence and for many of us that feeling of “Get ready, set, go,” will keep us on an emotional run for most of the ensuing days.  Let’s enjoy it!