It is hard to even know where to begin. Our country had its national elections this month. By all means of any logical reasoning, President Trump should have won in a landslide. He held rallies all over the swing states, sometimes 5 a day, in which tens of thousands of people attended with flags flying. There were spontaneous car and boat parade all over the country all in support of our president. His opponent, Joe Biden, hardly held any rallies and when he did he only attracted a couple of hundred people, even when former president O'Bama was there speaking with him. He stayed in his home most of the election season and if he went out he was protected by the media who asked only softball questions. He never had to answer the hard stuff on policy. On election night, the count was going Trump's way in most of the key states until the counting of ballots was stopped. (That has never happened before in the history of our country.) Miraculously, when we awoke the next morning, Biden was ahead by thousands of votes in all the key states. We've heard incidents of major voter fraud all over our country including computer glitches which turned Trump votes into Biden votes, illegal votes, and different voting procedures in democratic cities. Of course, the media was quick to call the election for Biden.
We were so depressed after the elections, we just couldn't sit home and fret. On Wednesday, we drove to Provo with no real purpose in mind, except to get away from the news. We stopped at Home Depot and Costco and then returned home. On Thursday we decided to take the newly paved road from Heber to Cascade Springs. It was a beautiful drive with magnificent views of the valley and reservoir. On Friday, we jumped in the car again and drove over Guardsman pass. The pass was scheduled to be closed the next day and we didn't want to wait till Spring to take the drive. The road to Guardsman pass began at the Wasatch State park here in the Heber Valley and took us over the mountains to the Snowbird ski resort and then down into Salt Lake City. The drive was exquisite. On our side of the pass, we could see forever down into Heber Valley. On the other side of the pass, we drove through incredible rock outcroppings which almost took our breath away. Little did we know that this beautiful drives was so close to us. We ended up at Freddy's in Sandy for lunch and then drove to Jon's to see his progress on their home. When we got to Jon's, we found that he needed Paul's help hanging a chandelier in the office so it was good thing we stopped by.
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| Jon's house is coming along |
With the rain and snow we received on the following Saturday and Sunday, we stayed close to home. We had to find things to keep us busy like cleaning house and fixing the garage doors so as to take our minds off what was happening in our country. We also decided to look at very little news, to drop the Fox news station from our viewing list, and to turn to the new News Max station for a conservative look at our world. We were in survival mode, with a prayer in our heart for our country.
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| Our first accumulation of snow for this winter |
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| Aria and Avery enjoying the snow in their backyard |
After two weeks of counting votes, the election was still up in the air. Several states were continuing to count votes. In my lifetime, all votes in previous national elections have always been counted by the end of the election night and a definite winner announced, with the exception of Al Gore VS George W. Bush where we had hanging chads in Florida disputed. This year, because of states sending out massive amounts of ballots to everyone, whether requested or not, the counting continued. It was found that many ballots were sent to old addresses and to people who had died or moved, thus making the ballots received in question of legal votes. Somehow enough ballots were found over those two weeks to put Biden in a substantial lead in the swing states. It was found that several laws were broken, such as not allowing Republican poll watcher to see the tallying of votes, except from 40 feet away, or sending them home and tallying more votes before they arrived the next morning. We found out that the accuracy of the counting machines used in these states was questionable and easily manipulated to switch votes or double count votes. According the experts, it was statistically impossible for Biden to have received the amount of votes he received. He underperformed Hillary Clinton and Barack O'Bama in the previous elections in every large city except for the 6 where voting malpractices had been found. Also, President Trump received ten million more votes than he did in 2016. Republicans flipped seats in the House, will probably keep the Senate, and Republicans in state races were extremely successful. One has to wonder, if the down ballot votes went Republican, how did President not win in a landslide. Two weeks later we were still praying that Trump's legal team and advisors could find undeniable evidence of this fraud and expose it to the world.
On the second Saturday after the election, and after it became apparent that massive fraud took place, a million man march was organized in Washington D.C. As seen in the pictures, there was an incredible turnout of tens of thousands, maybe even a million people. They were all holding signs and flags supporting President Trump. He even made a surprise visit in his motorcade to show the people of his love for them. The protest was totally peaceful until ANTIFA showed up as people were dispersing and started attacking the Trump supporters. Of course the media didn't cover anything except the violence and probably spun it to look like it was the Trump supporters that started it. So sad that the left has inspired such hatred in our country.
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| It's hard to believe that this many people would descend on Washington on such short notice to show love and support for our president. |
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| Amazing !!! |
By the end of the month, many lawsuits had been filed but the courts were not ruling in Trump's favor. The only hope was that the Supreme court of the land would hear these cases and rule that thousands of votes should be thrown out due to fraud. The Pennsylvania state legislature heard the evidence in a special session in which the Trump lawyers presented testimony of several witnesses. They have taken it upon themselves to write a resolution to delay the certification of the vote in their state and to reclaim their power to elect people to the electoral college that will vote for Trump. They saw the fraud and were appalled, yet the media still claims there was no evidence fraud. We will continue to pray for Trump and his legal team, hoping for that miracle from God to save our country.
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| Sad but true.... many dead people voted for Biden |
As to corona virus, COVID 19, the number of cases in the U.S., including Utah, skyrocketed this month. Governor Herbert put in place a mandatory mask mandate for everyone throughout the state. He put major fines on any person or group organizing and holding large events or parties. He suspended all high school sports for two weeks and asked us to keep our social gatherings to immediate households, also for two weeks. We abided by all of this except for having Todd and family up for Sunday dinner. We hadn't seen them for two weeks prior, and knew they had been careful in wearing masks and keeping away from other people. In Oregon, the restrictions became ridiculous. The governor asked everyone to not travel for Thanksgiving and if they left the state they were to quarantine for 14 days upon returning. They also asked neighbors to report on neighbors if they noticed an increase number of cars at a home, suggesting they were breaking the law about not having anyone but your household for a Thanksgiving celebration. This was like Hitler's Germany. As a result, Ryan and Katie canceled their Thanksgiving trip to St. George, Utah and to see us after the holiday. Andrea and family were planning on coming our way, too. They were going to leave Oregon the weekend before Thanksgiving, go pick up the girls at BYUI and then head our way to spend the holiday with us and away from the stress of Oregon. Andrea called the week before to tell us that Maggie was quarantined, pending the testing results of her roommate who was experiencing symptoms of COVID. Luckily her roommate tested negative, but it was still determined that the Westovers would not be coming our way for Thanksgiving , either. They were afraid that Maggie could be asymptomatic and expose us to COVID. They were also afraid that the quarantine order would be enforced in Oregon, after their return, so they would have to forgo any possible business for their company as they would not be able to go out and set anything up for customers.
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| Sad but true...wish people would take this virus for seriously. Right after this mask mandate was put into place, Paul went into two stores and found several customers without masks. |
The day after Thanksgiving began the project of decorating the house for Christmas. Every year, I vow to get a new Christmas tree that is pre lit. It takes me hours to string the lights on our present tree. The problem is that every time I see a tree I like, when I get up close to it, I find it's a plastic tree. That's the last thing I want is a plastic tree. This year, I'm going to make a concerted effort to find the right tree for next year. I do love our tree once it is decorated, though.
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| Appropriate for 2020 |
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| Grateful even for having to wear masks? No - grateful for having masks to wear to protect us from COVID. |
