February 17, 2002 Farmington, Utah

I hope you all had a HAPPY VALENTINE'S HOLIDAY - I appreciate your thoughtfulness to me SO much. I have a beautiful arrangement of fresh flowers from "My Family" - tulips, roses, carnations and daisies - AND in such bitter cold weather. MARY ANN, thank you SO much for your visit and for bringing your roommate, Meridith, to meet me. I LOVED having you come and getting me up-to-date on my Utah State grandchildren. Mary Ann was excited because Barji is coming home today - she and Boyd have been in Florida and he's going to stay there while she comes home for a little while. Jeannie and Rick went to Florida on Thursday and will be home tomorrow - they weren't in the same area as Boyd and Barji - Rick was attending Medtronic meetings.

BOB AND CLAIRE, thank you SO much for your visit last night.- and for the Thai dinner from our favorite restaurant in Roy. I had eaten when they came so I saved it for dinner today and it was just DELICIOUS. They told me that Laura plans to go to Summer School in Logan this Summer - I am SO happy that she loves Logan like I did when I went to school there.

I haven't heard from John this week and that is really unusual - I know he has known that I haven't been home. I'm kinda' expecting him to come to Utah soon because he has said he wanted to get in on the Olympic atmosphere before it ended. I have talked to Chris Jordin and she says the Little Rock weather has just been gorgeous so I know the Roy Mellors are busy and happy and hoping their Spring buds don't get frozen. I'm anxious to hear how the Woolleys liked the Olympic Hockey Events.

WOW - THE OLYMPICS ARE REALLY IN UTAH!!! I feel as though I have been a part of them without having to put on a pair of skis - I surely hope you have been able to see some of the events. I went to Park City last Friday with some friends and we stayed in Margaret's condo and since she also has a unit in the "lodges" we were able to go there too and they shuttled us to Main Street where all the action was. There has really been a "HOT" item and if you have watched any of the events you will know that it is the navy blue "beret" manufactured by the Canadian firm "Roots". We were in line to get one for over an hour and then we found out that two of our friends who weren't with us when we found them wanted them too so we went back and got two more. We paid $21.50 including tax and the next day we were offered $100.00 for each one because they ran out - it was tempting, Ha!!! It has been fun to watch all the interest in them and we decorated them with Olympic pins besides buying other pins for keepsakes - we kept saying, "This is a once in a lifetime opportunity". The Budweiser Clydesdale Horse team went up and down throwing out fake gold medals on beads and I got one but then later on in the day a young man came up to me and said, "Mam, I'm going to a Mardi Gras Party tonight, how much do you want for your necklace?" so I gave it to him.

We had our picture taken with the "Jamaican Bobsled Team", visited the Wyoming Hospitality House and had Buffalo Chili, and walked up and down Main Street taking in all the activities - we had so much fun we went back the next day. There wasn't nearly as much traffic as we had been told there would be but in certain restricted places the security checks were unbelievable. I had a bottle of water in my purse and I had to drink some of it to prove it wasn't anything that would cause problems. I took pictures of people with many Olympic pins on their vests - there were people all over trading them. One of my friends has a "green Jell-O Olympic pin" and I guess that is quite rare.

I went to the Men's Figure Skating event at the Delta Center on Thursday night and that was fantastic. All the Americans were cheering for Goebel and he came in third place for the Bronze and it was exciting to see how all the Americans cheered equally as hard for the Russian Skaters who won the Silver and Gold. The area around the Delta Center was exotic after the event was over and I'm SO glad I was able to see it - there were beautiful lights everywhere and we could see the five Olympic rings that were on the mountain. We walked through the new "Gateway Shopping Center" and it was crowded at 10 p.m. and beautiful.

I thought the Opening Ceremonies were MAGNIFICENT - we watched them on television in Park City and we all kept talking about how they covered everything - even covered wagons to tell about the significance of the pioneers coming to the Utah Valley. It was thrilling to see President and Mrs. Bush mingle among the athletes and also have them meet with the First Presidency of the L.D.S. church and visit the State Capitol where the tabernacle choir performed. It was extremely cold but everyone had been told in the newspapers to prepare for it so I'm sure they did.

My favorite part of the Opening Ceremonies was when the athletes marched in carrying their country's flags. I want to record for my journal all the countries represented: USA, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Republic of Korea, Russia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, Switzerland and Yugoslavia. Everyone was excited about who would light the cauldron because they had kept that a secret - it turned out to be the winners of the last hockey gold medal, the entire team took part in it.

We have had beautiful weather but it's supposed to change tonight with more snow forecast. They built a "snow maze" in Park City but we didn't see it - the pictures showed that it was like the corn mazes built but out of snow instead. I think that would be scary. Did you all hear about Rulon Gardner's experience? He is the wrestler who won the Gold over the Russian wrestler and he is such a nice young man - from Wyoming. He went snowmobiling without a jacket - that is SO dumb!!! He got stuck in a ravine and his friends went for help but he was out in below zero weather all night and will be in the hospital for another week - they didn't find him until about 10 a.m. the next morning and they're worried about frostbite.

I have a favor to ask of each one of you. Dorothy and Dan Woods will be celebrating their 50th Wedding Anniversary on April 15th and Terry has created a website for them. I would appreciate it SO much if you would access this and register on their guest list. The web site is as follows: http://www.geocities.com/twsno2001/Index.html I couldn't access it until I discovered I was using the capital I instead of the lower case L at the end. They also have a family web site if you are interested and it is as follows:

http://www.geocities.com/twsno2001/FamilyYears.html I have told them I plan to go to Little Rock in April and if it is okay with Roy and Patrice I will plan to be there on their anniversary and attend their "bash" - they don't know anything about it because their children are planning it - I hope Roy and Patrice will go with me.