My brother-in-law, Mike Stevens, has had a busy year. Shortly after his youngest daughter, Lacey’s wedding to Chris Killinger, Mike got his hip replaced. He really needed to have it replaced before the wedding, but he did not want to be laid up during the wedding. He was determined to walk his little girl down the aisle, and to do it without a cane. That was very important to him!! He did his best to do as much as he could to give Lacey her dream wedding. Chris and Lacey did a lot too, as well as Chris’ dad to make that happen, and it was gorgeous. The wedding was in late October, and his surgery was in mid-November.
Mike was in so much pain last summer, that he couldn’t play much golf or do much hunting. He did go on a fishing trip to Alaska with brother-in-law, Mike Reed and Mike Reeds brothers-in-law. While he was in some pain, he persevered, and the guys had a great time. He is planning to play a lot of golf this summer and go hunting in the fall, because the knee surgery he was hoping to avoid is going to have 
to take place this November. Another thing Mike and my sister, Alena Stevens plan to do before his knee replacement is to travel to Mississippi and the other gulf states. Then, Alena can cross those states off of her bucket list. They are very excited about that trip.
Mike also really enjoys watching Barrett-Jackson auctions. They auction all manner of vehicles and depending on the vehicle they can bring in well over $100,000. One day, he hopes to go to some of these auctions. His brother-in-law, Mike Reed is restoring and 61 ford flatbed pickup, two corvettes and 80’ish short bed pickup. Mike Stevens (Yes, we have to distinguish between the brothers-in-law with last names, hahaha!!) enjoys coming 
out to help him with these sometimes. Mike has been helping Mike Reed restore a couple of cars too. The guys have had a great time with that process. Both men are mechanics, and love working on these older cars.
And of course, one of the highlights of the Stevens family summer is the annual Stevens family reunion every fourth of July. They all meet up out at Pathfinder Reservoir to swim, suntan (the girls anyway), play horseshoes, and probably some other games, to see who the reigning champions will be for the next year. They even have trophies for the winners. It’s shaping up to be a great summer for Mike!! Today is Mike’s birthday!! Happy birthday Mike!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
My grandniece, Katy Herr is living her dream life of being a wife and mother. She and her husband, Dylan are parents of Max Robert Herr, who was born on June 14, 2020, and is now coming up on three years old. The day Max was born was literally one of the happiest days of Katy’s life. She had wanted to be a mom for so long, and now she is loving every minute of it. I most often see Katy when she is doing her shopping at Walmart…isn’t that where everyone sees people. It seems to be the place we meet up with all our friends and family. Katy and Max are always having such sweet mommy-son moments. She is totally focused on him and he loves the attention she gives him.
They also “workout” together, or in reality. Katy works out and 
Max is her self-appointed personal trainer, and he takes his job very seriously, regularly “kicking his mom’s butt” with the exercises he makes her do. While it’s a lot of work, and probably very tiring, Max keeps her focused, and as his daddy says, “29 looks amazing” on her. It just goes to show you that hard work and a “brutal” trainer will definitely produce a great outcome. Katy should get some of the credit, I suppose, after all, she is the one doing the workout and sticking with the program. No workout program is easy, because our bodies are naturally “lazy” and would rather sit and watch television. Sticking with a workout plan, like Katy has done, takes perseverance and determination.
Dylan owns several branches of Red Wing Shoe Stores in Colorado and Wyoming, with his dad and brother. He participates in charitable giving, and Katy is the perfect person to have by his side at these events. They make a very handsome couple. They are both very involved in the community of Casper, where they live. Max is their smiling little sidekick, and he puts a smile on their faces every day. Dylan is Katy’s soulmate, and together, they are building a beautiful life. I am very happy for them. When Katy met Dylan, her life change like taking a complete 180° turn. Prior to that she was doing ok, but not like the change that took place when she met Dylan. Then life was grand. Today is Katy’s birthday. Happy birthday Katy!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
Flight has always been an obsession with humans. In the early 11th century, an English Benedictine monk named Eilmer of Malmesbury, attempted a gliding flight using wings he had made. The “flight” went pretty well. It is said that he “flew” about 220 yards, before crashing and breaking both his legs. I suppose you could call that a flight, thereby making it the first winged flight in history, but the reality is that it was quite likely the first “crash” instead. Apparently, this “flying monk” made his maiden flight.
As the story goes, Eilmer of Malmesbury built himself a pair of wings around the year 1005. He then climbed up onto a tower and proceeded to jump off. He managed to glide into a headwind for about 220 yards. Unfortunately, the headwind was quite strong, and combined with a bit of a panic on the part of the “flying 
monk” he began to descend rapidly…ie crash. He ended up veering off to the side and crashing. I hardly thing what he did could be called a flight. To me it couldn’t even be called a controlled crash. Basically, he jumped off a roof and after the few seconds it took to travel 220 yards, he dropped like a rock. It’s very possible that he found himself at the mercy of his own rash decision to take on such a venture.
Eilmer of Malmesbury, survived the “crash landing” but with both legs broken. He survived the crash and his broken legs healed, but in those days, the setting of his legs couldn’t have been good, and most likely 
wasn’t done at all. With that working against him, Eilmer of Malmesbury walked with a limp for the rest of his life. Eilmer used a bird-like apparatus to glide downwards against the breeze. Unfortunately, he was unable to balance himself forward and backwards, as does a bird by slight movements of its wings, head and legs. He would have needed a large tail to maintain that equilibrium. While, Eilmer could not have achieved true soaring flight, he might have glided down safely with a tail. Eilmer said he had “forgotten to provide himself with a tail.” I guess every endeavor has its flaws, and this was no exception.
Fidel Castro was a thorn in the side of the United States and many other countries for many years. The CIA has long been rumored to have planned a series of assassination attempts against Castro using elaborate means, from using exploding cigars to poisoned pills to putting thallium salt in his shoes. Castro’s inner circle estimate that there were some 634 attempts to take his life including, giving Castro poisoned cigars, gifting him with a scuba suit lined with a skin-eating fungus, and stabbing him with a poisoned needle hidden inside a pen. There were also a number of plots to humiliate him as well, including the plot to spray Castro’s broadcasting studio with an LSD-like substance so he’d trip and fall while giving one of his 
speeches and (hopefully) sound very silly too. And they wanted to dust his shoes with a substance that would make his beard fall out. Those didn’t happen either.
But the document officially reveals some of the schemes focused on Castro’s love of skin diving, hoping that he would pick up the beach shell and trigger an explosive, and another that considered giving the revolutionary a contaminated diving suit. That of course leaves a lot to chance and makes the beach unsafe for anyone else there, or that the wrong person might pick up the seashell. These ideas for assassination attempts, whether real or rumored, were wild and often crazy, but at the very least, they show just how frustrating a man Fidel Castro was. When people 
consider booby trapping a seashell, you know they are grasping at straws. Still, such an attempt wouldn’t work on just any “mark” because not every mark would possibly pick up a seashell.
In each of these attempts or imaginary attempts, Fidel Castro walked away unscathed. It wasn’t that attempts weren’t made it was just that Fidel Castro wasn’t killed in the attempts. I don’t know how he escaped, and many people wish he had not. His reign of terror was far too long and far too horrific. In the end, Castro, who overthrew US-backed Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista in 1959, died of natural causes on November 25, 2016, at age 90, leaving power to his brother Raul.
Serious accidents happen, and they are almost always due to negligence on the side of one party or the other, but when two automobiles, planes, ships, or trains hit each other head-on, someone was seriously in the wrong place and going the wrong way. On May 14, 1991, two diesel trains carrying commuters crashed head-on, near Shigaraki, Japan, killing 42 people and injuring over 600 others. This was the worst rail disaster in Japan since a November 1963 Yokohama crash, which killed 160 people.
Shigaraki, a town near Kyoto, is famous for its ceramics. On that May 14th, the World Ceramics Festival was being held in the town. That put many more people in town than normal. It also filled the passenger trains with people on their way to the event. At just after 10am, passengers filled a train in Kikukawa, which was to run along a 9.1-mile single-track rail line away from Shigaraki. When the train was loaded, the However, workers on the Shigaraki Kogen Railways (SKR) line prepared to depart, but they could not get a green signal indicating that the track was clear so they could 
depart from the station. The system showed that a train was approaching. The workers believed the signal was malfunctioning, and so they overrode the system and sent the train out, 11 minutes late.
Sadly, they were to find out too late that the system had been correct and a JR West commuter train carrying passengers toward Shigaraki for the festival was speeding toward them. The only mechanical failure that day was when a faulty-departure detector failed to work correctly, sending the JR West commuter train out on a collision course with the SKR train. The resulting crash derailed both trains and cost 42 people their lives. Very seldom does the fault in an accident lie with just one person. A subsequent investigation faulted the SKR workers for allowing the train to depart without a green signal, an action found to be dangerous and illegal. A signal engineer was also blamed for the defective wiring that led to the failure of the faulty-departure detector that should have prevented the collision. A 1999 civil trial resulted in a 500-million-yen (3,196,500 US dollars) award to the victims against SKR and JR West jointly. JR West pledged 
safety improvements (after the Shigaraki accident), but it again had an accident in Amagasaki. The Amagasaki rail crash was a fatal railway accident that occurred on April 25, 2005, at 9:19am local time. Of the roughly 700 passengers (initial estimate was 580 passengers) on board at the time of the crash, 106 passengers, in addition to the driver, were killed and 562 others injured. Each year, since the disaster, the victims of the Shigaraki Head-On collision are remembered in a ceremony in Shigaraki.
My niece, Andrea Beach has always had a passion for the culinary arts. She also has a heart for helping people. Those two things don’t always go together, but Andrea has figured out a way to do that. Since moving back to Casper, Wyoming from Rawlins, Wyoming, she has been working at Mountain Plaza Assisted Living. She doesn’t really have close contact with any of the residents, but Andrea has been working to make their mealtimes special for almost a year now. She loves creating meals that make the residents feel like they are eating in a high-end restaurant, and yet they are getting good nutrition and amazing taste too. Before Andrea started working there, the meals were great, but now they are spectacular!!
Andrea loves being back in Casper and around all the family. She and my niece, Jenny Spethman have grown 
so close. They really are best friends, and they love to do lots of things together. Cousins should be close friends, I think, and these girls really are. They hike together and hang out together. It’s really very nice for them, since there are only three girls in the two families, out of eight people. Those girls are outnumbered!! They have to stick together!! I’m happy for the girls. All too often, as we reach adulthood, our friend become fewer and fewer, or at least that’s how it seems to me. I realize that may just be me, but these girls are extroverts, while I am an introvert. Plus, what better friend is there in the world than sisters and cousins. They share common bonds that just aren’t shared with a friend. I’m not knocking friends, but sisters and cousins are with you, no matter what.
Andrea has always had a flare for the artistic. She has done some paintings, and they are really excellent. 
Recently, however, she had the opportunity to capture some of God’s artwork, which is beyond compare, as we all know. Nevertheless, it takes a good photographer to capture the Auroras in the dark, and without shaking the camera. Andrea and her son, Chris stayed up well past midnight to she could capture these shots for her mom, Caryl Reed and stepdad, Mike Reed, who just couldn’t stay awake for it. Sorry Caryl and Mike, I had to tattle!! Andrea and Chris got an amazing show, and amazing shots of it. Today is Andrea’s birthday. Happy birthday Andrea!! Have a great Day!! We love you!!
Motherhood is such a complex occupation. Your actual title might be mom, mommy, momma, or some other version of the name, but you are so much more. You are a nurse, teacher, nurturer, referee, maid…well, you get the picture. A mother is the wearer of many hats, and we wouldn’t even be here without her. I have been blessed with two moms, Collene Spencer and Joann Schulenberg; two daughters, Corrie Petersen and Amy Royce; and two granddaughters-in-law with children, Karen Petersen and Athena Petersen. Babies are such a blessing, and then they grow into wonderful adults and the blessings continue for years to come.
Mother’s Day becomes something different wen you mom or mother-in-law are in Heaven. While they aren’t really gone, they are gone from our view, and that makes us sad. I’m sure that, like me, you probably thought your mom would always be there with you. We never expect them to leave us until they are gone, and then we realize just how much we will miss them. Those moments when we would love to call them, to say Hi, or to ask a question, or talk about our day, or even to cry on their shoulder. The day our mom leaves us is one of the hardest days we will ever have.
When we become moms, we find out how rewarding motherhood can be, but also, just how hard it can be too. Things like diaper changes, formula, and spitting up, soon give way to school days, school supplies, school clothes, and of course, the dreaded homework help. Still, watching them grow and mature is among the most 
rewarding things we will ever experience. Then, before our very eyes, they are making us into grandmothers, and the cycle of life continues. Our babies having babies and before we know it our grandbabies are having babies. Time just doesn’t stand still. It is always marching on.
Today is a day when we get to celebrate our mothers, our daughters who are mothers, and our granddaughters who are mothers. We celebrate, because they have made us so happy. They are among the most special people ever to walk the face of the Earth. Today is Mother’s Day. Happy Mother’s Day to the mothers in my life, and the mothers in yours. Have a great day, ladies!! We love you so much!!
My uncle, Larry Byer was just 20 months older than his little sister, my mom, Collene Spencer, who was followed 24 months later by their little brother, Wayne Byer. The three of them being as close as they were tended to try their mother, Hattie Byer’s patience at times. Boys being boys, and my mom being in the middle made for triple trouble. If you know anything about double trouble, I’m sure you can imagine what triple trouble was like. It was a good thing my grandmother was a tough lady…small but mighty, as they say. When her triple trouble kids got under her skin, she had no trouble handling their antics.
After high school, Uncle Larry went into the Army. This was during the Korean War, but he was stationed in Germany. and he also spent some time in Austria. He said he wished he had been in Korea, but I’m not so sure he really would have. My guess is that he felt like he should have been there with so many others. After the war, he married my Aunt Jeanette, and together they had two children, Larry Wayne Byer and Tina Grosvenor. They also have six grandchildren, three granddaughters, including a set of twins, as well as three grandsons, and a number of great grandchildren. They were happily married for 55 years until Uncle Larry’s passing.
Uncle Larry worked for a number of years for Texaco Refinery, and when they closed down, he was not at 
retirement age, so he took the transfer, and they moved to Louisianna. The split up their land here, outside of Caser and gave it to their kids. It must have been strange to move to a hot climate after living their whole lives in Wyoming, where we have more months of cold weather than we do warm weather. They remained in Louisianna until Uncle Larry was ready to retire, then came back to Wyoming where his lived out his life. Uncle Larry died of a heart attack on December 22, 2011, and we were very saddened to see him go. Today would have been Uncle Larry’s 90th birthday. Happy birthday in Heaven Uncle Larry. We love and miss you very much.
When I first came home from the hospital, after I was born, I found my sister, Cheryl Masterson waiting there. She has always been in my life. My first blessing of a sister, and I was hers. We would later go on to have three more sisters; Caryl Reed, Alena Stevens, and Allyn Hadlock…three more blessings of sisterhood. What great blessings my sisters have been to me, and I know they all feel the same way.
Cheryl is a strong woman. She may not realize just how strong she really is, but I see it. She raised her five children, Chantel Balcerzak, Toni Chase, Rob Masterson, Liz Masterson, and Jenny Spethman, by herself. She was a single mom with an absent ex-husband. She didn’t sit and cry, she got up and went to college to become a Legal Secretary and is now one of the most valuable and indispensable employees at the firm where she has worked for many years. In addition to that, when our parents needed care, Cheryl lived with them and took every “night shift” helping them. She came home from work and cooked, cleaned, and gave them their medicines. She helped with their evening and weekend needs. We couldn’t have handled it without her. Of course, she didn’t do it alone. We all helped, but her living there gave us the evenings off to a degree, and that was a huge help, and we will be forever grateful to her.
Cheryl is a strong Christian woman. These days she spends many of her evenings reading her Bible and other 
Christian book. She takes the position of family matriarch, when came to her as the eldest sibling, when our parents passed away, very seriously. Of course, there is more to being the matriarch than being the spiritual head of the family. “A family matriarch is a woman who is the head and ruler of her family and descendants. She is usually older and powerful and has authority over family matters.” Of course, she doesn’t practice her position to the fullest extent of its meaning, because we are all grown and have families of our own. Nevertheless, she does try to be a spiritual guide, which is definitely what our parents would have wanted…a kind-hearted, loving Christian voice to keep the family on the right track.
Cheryl is an amazing cook and holds gatherings with her family just about every week. With five children, her family has grown quite large, and that’s the way she likes it. There is nothing that pleases her more than to have all of her children, children-in-law, and grandchildren, and great grandchildren surrounding her and 
enjoying a good meal and good conversation. And she especially love having all the babies around. These days, Cheryl’s family consists of five children, three sons-in-law, one daughter-in-law, fifteen grandchildren, seven grandchildren-in-law, and eight great grandchildren. All that makes for a rather large gathering…provided they can all make it over. People are all very busy. Today is Cheryl’s 70th birthday!! Happy birthday Cheryl!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
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