Family Photo Album Travel and Visitors 1993 Smaller Trips: See pictures and Stories Below Link Month Days Place Who Feb 14 Trip Across America: Relocate from Michigan to Utah Apr   We build our Utah Dream House    July 1 A Party to Celebrate our New Home Oct 4 San Antonio: Dave Business Conference and LBJ Dave Nov 4 NYC Circle Tour: Dave gets his last President's Graves Dave   Nov 10 Lyn's Parents Visit us in Utah #1   Dec Satan's Kittens Move In Dec 1 Renaissance Festival at our House   Dec 2 Twin Falls, ID: Shop at Targets / Swim in the Pool This Trip and Visitor Page  Is Still Under Construction Oct 1993 San Antonio / LBJ Ranch Dave This trip should eventually get its own travel page. Nov 1993 NYC President Circle Tour Dave This trip should eventually get its own travel page. Nov 1993 Lyns Parents Visit #1 All Lyn's parents were the first official visitors to our new "house on the hill" in Ogden. They stayed for ten days including Thanksgiving and Dave took vacation time to be with them. We did local sightseeing, cut a Christmas tree at a nearby farm, and had Thanksgiving dinner together. We often look back on this visit as our favorite as we were young and very tired from the ordeal of the job change, our cross country move, and the construction of our new house. Our favorite picture from the entire visit Dinner at Prairie Schooner, Ogden UT Prime Rib for Thanksgiving Dinner The boys (Dave, Jesse, and Lyn's Dad) took several enjoyable  side trips together including a visit to the Thiokol missiles and Promontory point (above) and to see the military aircraft museum at nearby Hill AFB (right) We drove up to nearby Park City on a quiet week day to have some cocoa and visit the tourist shops. We also cut our first Utah Christmas tree from a nearby tree farm and placed it in the cavernous alcove at the front of the vaulted living room window. It was a time of great celebration for our young family. Dec 1993 Satan's Kittens Move In All With Jesse an active six year old and Barney already growing tired at twelve, we decided our huge house could easily support a playful kitten for Jesse. As we asked around, a woman from church told us her street cat just had an unplanned litter that included two picture beautiful kittens: one entirely black and one entirely grey. We fell in love with them on first sight, and only learned the truth after they moved in to our home. Our first meeting should have told the story, as we found she kept the kittens, since birth, locked in cold, dank, unlit downstairs utility room filled with rusty tools and partially opened canisters of cleanser. The remains from her last week's "feedings" were evident around the tiny room, as empty six cans of cat food, their lids still attached and bent upward, were all licked clean and scattered randomly on the floor. Although the natural beauty of the pure black and pure grey kittens blinded us, this woman had methodically raised her litter to be feral, self-reliant, fearful of humans, and comfortable only when totally alone and in total darkness. She pretended for us that she interacted with them ("I call the black one 'blacky' and the grey one 'grey-ey') but couldn't find the 'fourth one' anywhere in the abandoned locked room. The interior door was padlocked as an outside access door was kept slightly ajar 'so they can come and go as they please'. We grabbed the two frightened animals and brought them upstairs (now obviously for the very first time). When we set them down, to say thank-you and to leave, one darted under the couch and the other cowered in a hallway corner. As we cornered the second and lifted the couch for the first, it took a dump on the carpet and in the confusion the other scratched Jesse and leapt to  escape his clutches. The old woman said "my oh my they are so frisky". and "don't worry about the miss, I'll clean it. You guys just go and get settled in your new home". The kittens ended their first visit 'upstairs' with their only exit through the front door as we naively brought them home. Dave named the kittens "Paws" (Pause) and "Play" after an old pun, and Jesse immediately renamed his kitten slippers "Rewind" and "Fast Forward".  We showed them the litter box, their food dishes, their toys. We showed them Jesse's room, and the cat beds we had already purchased for their scheduled arrival. But it was for naught. Not once did they crap anywhere except in each house plant pot, in each corner of the family and living room, on on bed (twice) and on  homemade comforter on Jesse's bed (three times). After each dump, we would attach them to leashes and set them in the basement near the litter, expecting them to dread the banishment and then to reward their litter compliance by returning them to the warm house and our affection and toys. We would instead find one comfortable on the abandoned and frigid cement and the other literally curled up in the in the used sandbox. They were indeed feral and yet  we could not see it. Barney, it must be said, never paid them any mind except to turn his back and scold us from time to time. But it us took three full weeks of this insanity, patiently teaching with loving disciple, that we figured out that it was doomed from the start. It came like a lightning bolt that the cats were not social, had not been trained to enjoy humans, had essentially been raised to run free in the foothills catching rodents and eventually being eaten by a puma. That sweet little old woman from church had done Satan's work, condemned these kittens to death by her inattention when a few simple hours of her time across the few weeks following their birth would have provided the kittens and us a lifetime of joy and companionship. We could have spent years of work pointlessly trying to socialize these creature while a dozen or hundred kittens would go to their death at the pound because no home could be found for them. No, instead it was these feral beasts that would go to sleep and after a month to resettle  we would eventually find "Figment", Jesse's joyful companion and faithful family friend across the years. A few weeks later, we ran into the old woman at church and we were shocked at her denial. With a song in her voice she asked, "How are those darling kittens getting along?". Dave was brutal to her. "We had them put down. You raised them like alley rats. They crapped all over the house and were totally frightened of all people. No, we went to the pound and got ourselves a nice new kitten. Why do you ask?"  And that was that. Dec 1993 Twin Falls, ID for Targets and a Swim All Lyn was blue as Christmas approached, so Dave found that the nearest Target store (Lyn's favorite) was just three hours away by car in Twin Falls, ID. He found a cheap hotel there (with an indoor pool)  and surprised everybody with a week-end away to shop for Christmas and swim durinh December. It wasn't Disneyworld, but it would be the best we would get at this very low point in our lives. Click to view a different holiday or year Original Web Upload July, 2001 Last Update: January 15, 2003