I have had a great, busy summer. The first week of June we had a Smith family reunion with our children at Heber, UT. Two weeks later Kevin and I went with Neal to Kansas City, MO for the national skills competition. The third week in July I drove to Salt Lake City to visit with Alma's family and Jeanette's family. I also got to see some of my brothers and sisters and families along with Mom. In the middle of the week I flew to Reno, NV to work on state reading curriculum. Then on July 28 I got up early to attend a workshop in Ely, NV for the Desert Research Institute. Before I left home Jeanette called to tell me that she was going to have the babies. I drove to Ely to give my excuse for not attending and on to Salt Lake City, UT. It was a rush trip but I missed the delivery of the twins by 30 minutes. I stayed with Jeanette for a day and then came home.

A couple of weeks after that Kevin went to a church farm committee meeting near Ely and then went on to SLC to meet the twins. At the end of August I then went to SLC again to help Jeanette and Jeff when the twins came home from the hospital.

In between trips; I had jury duty, watched grandchildren, went to the dentist and cleaned house some.

On Labor day after seeing the parade in Pioche, Kevin, Neal, I and a friend of Neal's took the Rhino and 4 wheeler to Ella Mt. lookout tower. It was a fun ride and we sure enjoyed the day.

National Skills usa,

This week (June 22ND-27Th) I (Neal) and My mom and dad had the opportunity to go to Kansas city to participate in National Skills USA. I went for cabinetmaking, The competition goes like this, at 7:30 AM they took all the contestants up to the competition area and showed us all what was at our work stations and showed us how to run some of the newer machines there, and they also had a finished cabinet of what we were suppose to build. They let us look at that for maybe 5-10 minutes and then gave us some plans and we went to our work stations and from the plans we had to fill out a "cut list" (which is a list of every single part and we had to fill in how long and wide and thick and how much of every part there is on this cabinet) Then once we got that all filled out we turned it in and we went to work. All together this contest was about 8 hours long, with a 30 minute lunch break, and it took about 30 minutes to fill out the cut list. So really every competitor had 7 hours to build and extremely difficult cabinet. But once it was all over I felt really good on how I did and I figured that I would place fairly high. Well there was 43 competitors and I placed 18TH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dang good for being at Nationals. It was an amazing experience to be there and be around some of the best skilled people in high school and talk to them and to meet alot of newe people. I am very grateful for mom and dad for the money they spent for us to be able to go there. And for them going too. It was really fun to be with them and I have wanted them to see me work ever since my first year of skills usa, so finally they were able to. So here are some pictures of the whole thing.

High School Graduation and Family Reunion

On May 29, our youngest son, Neal graduated from Lincoln County High School. This is the same high school that I (Kevin) graduated from 3 or 4 years (decades) ago. All of our children except Alma and his family were able to attend. Congratulations Neal!

On Sunday after graduation all of our children and their familes (25 people in all) met in Heber City Utah for a family reunion. We had a great time visiting, playing games, eating, and visiting some of the local attractions. We rode down the Alpine Slide one day and rode the Heber Train another day and rafted down the Provo River another day. We had a great time. A great big thank you to all who made this possible.

The big race!!

So every year there is race in Calinete put on by SNORE (Southern Nevada Off Road Enthusiast) and well this year I (Neal) was looking on their web site and thought I would ask and see if anyone would let me co-ride a lap at this race. Well this guy e-mailed me back and said that he would let me co-ride a lap. Well this race was this past weekend (May 9Th.) Well I made it through safe and I had a great time. I wasn't able to take my camera on the ride but mom and dad got pictures of me climbing and getting strapped in for the ride, then pictures of coming down the final hill behind the stores in Caliente. In all but the last picture I am in the Bronco.

Vica/ Skills Usa

Well this year skills usa was in reno again and once again I competed in cabinet making again this year ( my third year.) Last year I took fifth place and was getting exited for this year. On thursday we woke up at 5:30 to get all our showers and head down to the bus to go find something to eat, well every place was closed!! So we just headed down to the place where this contest was held at. This year was a complete different cabinet then the past couple years. Last year's did not have a draw, just a door and a adjustable shelf (this years had one too.) All together there was four kids from our school working, and 18 people started but only 16 stayed and worked the whole time. (two girls droped out a hour into working!!) But anyways after eight hours of hard thinking and working, they told us to put our tools down and move our cabinets (completed or not) down to these tables. We stayed a little after to look at all the cabinets and there was only three finished!!! (last year almost everyone finished that shows how hard this years was.) the ones that finished were a kid from elko high school, and Ivan Ortiz from our school, and me. Well that were the three that got medals!!! The elko kid took third, I took second, and Ivan took first!!!!!!!! It is pretty amazing that our school took first and second, I still think I am dreaming!! But anyways, so we got some prizes for wining and Ivan get's to make a trip to kanas city to compete in another competiton there agianst all the other gold medal winners in the united states. It so cool!!!!!!!!!!! But anyways here is some pictures of everything.

General Conference

Last weekend Ann, Neal and I traveled to Salt Lake City for General Conference and to visit Alma, Mattie and Family, and Jeanette and Jeff. We traveled up on Saturday arrived in time to attend Ann's Sister Karens Easter Egg Hunt. Most of Anns family that lives around Salt Lake were there. Many of them we had not seen for some time. It was a great time. Saturday Evening, Ann, Jeanette and Matti went out to dinner while Alma, Neal, Jeff and I went to the Priesthood session then we went to dinner. We had tickets to the Sunday afternoon session so Ann, Neal and I traveled to downtown on the Trax and watched the morning session in the tabernacle and then attended the afternoon session in the Conference Center. When we got back to Jeanette and Jeff's house they had the news on TV. The station had a report on the afternoon session of conference. To our surprise we were in the report!!.


I have attached a link to the report: (Pause the video at Frame 21)
http://www.kutv.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoId=88381@kutv.dayport.com&navCatId=5&articleID=88381

Joe's cabinet.

Well past two years I (Neal)have been in a club called vica ( also called skills usa) And I entered a cabinet making competition and have done pretty well (last year I took fifth place out of maybe 15 or so) And the cabinet we build is a good looking cabinet and well Joe has asked for me to build him one and now that I finished the table and some other really small projects I built this one. It only took me just about a week and a half to do this. There is a door that goes on it but we didn't have hinges for it so we will get some later and put it on.