Letters to Caleb: The week of the LOST

Dear boys,

What a crazy week this has been. It started out as a fun spur of the moment Family Home Evening boating activity on Hyrum Reservoir. We were only gone for 3-4 hours. After getting home and backing the boat into the garage, Adam noticed that Baxter wasn't here to greet us, only Snitch. Weird! We called around and of course, he wasn't near. Whenever I had been called from a neighbor saying they spotted what looks like our golden retriever, they have said that he just kept running and didn't look back, even when they'd call his name. So, it was a question of which direction did he run.?.? Someone in our family thinks that he doesn't need his perimeter shock collar on so they take it off. Something must've spooked him. I don't know what gets in his head to leave home and start looking for us elsewhere. Anyway, it was getting dark and we all went separate directions to start looking for him. None of us had a tying to report. My first thought was "Caleb and Jacob are going to be so mad at us!" I just had an emptiness in my heart. We gathered back at our house and tried to call the animal control guy over North Logan, Nolan Krebs, but couldn't find his number. Then Dad called the North Park police station and spoke with a dispatch lady who said that she thinks there was a call made about an older golden retriever found. All we could do was go to bed and wait, not knowing if he was safe or not.

We got a call the next day from the animal control guy saying that they found him but the family wanted to keep him! Ugghh! We were all headed to Salt Lake to a doctors appointment so Dad had to go get him. The lady questioned him hard to make sure Baxter belonged to him. They seriously would've kept him. Anyway, all was well with the world because Baxter was back home with us when we got home from Salt Lake that day.

The next incident happened on Thursday when Dad got his car & expensive bike stolen. I'm sure he told you all about it.

Well, it all ended ok. We've been able to try out two new lakes this week with no incident, other Dad losing his flip flops in the mucky mud as he was walking to our boat through 3' of water at Cutler reservoir. Mantua was a pretty cool place too. It's kind of fun to change things up. Sydney had the opportunity to show everybody up with her mad wake-boarding skills when she went on a group date boating on Hyrum last Saturday. On Tuesday, we had to say our goodbyes to the Hunter family, probably for 3 years as they are moving to Australia next week. They'll certainly have an adventure.

I hope all is well with you both. I can't believe we have a date of Dec. 7th already for you Caleb. It makes it a little more real.

Love you both SO MUCH!

Mom