Sunday, April 24, 2016

Week of April 18 - 24, 2016

Highlights:

Spiritual
I began my Wednesday at the Phoenix Temple. It is nice to have so many more people in the sessions. There are always quite a few men - 18 this time, and there were 11 women, which is more than I have seen in a long time. It was a wonderful session and great to serve there.


I had a good scout meeting this week.We played some fun indoor games and talked a lot about good sportsmanship. Perhaps some of the Presidential candidates need the lesson our eight year old boys received!


I went visiting teaching with my companion on Tuesday and Thursday. One sister we visit had just completed jury duty service and told us a little about the trial she was on, since it was done. The second sister has homes both in Flagstaff and Phoenix and we had a fun visit. I had mailed the message, calendar and letter to my only-by-mail sister earlier in the month.

My visiting teachers came on Monday morning. Our home teachers came on Tuesday evening for a wonderful visit. We love our visits from Brother Parker and Bishop Edwards.

We had one of the many new families moving in our ward speak on Sunday. I love the stories of conversion and faith we heard. I was asked at the last minute to fill in for the Sacrament Meeting Chorister, and then I ran down to Primary where I substituted for the primary chorister in both junior and senior primaries. 

I am in 2 Nephi 12,
I have indexed  6015 records so far this year. 

Family

The Wilkins Family
This Wilkins family had a busy week with work, school and activities. All are well with them.

The Ethan Rice Family
Ethan and Kaylee came by on Tuesday night. She played with me and Dad and Ethan prepped ocean fishing rods for the trip to California.
Happy 10th Anniversary on April 22nd.
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Some pics of this family on their anniversary trip...

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Ethan needed his trailer hitch back so they also came by on Sunday for a visit and to get that so Ethan could move the boat stored at their house into the garage and move the trailer nearer the house.

The Doran Rice Family
I do believe we have Queen Elizabeth on her way to school...
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This made me chuckle.
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 There was one time in a Sacrament Primary Program that this little boy's father sat in front of the entire church doing the exact same thing. I kept trying to get his attention over and over. Finally, a teacher near him noticed my pleadings...

Doran is working on building his own composter. He is doing well at work and trying to find a suitable replacement so his promotion to technician can finally go through. 

Morgan
Morgan was busy with work all week.

Kayty
Kayty journeyed back to Phoenix on Monday night. I saw her and welcomed her home at midnight, and then checked on her periodically all night and till her time to go to work. She was zonked! She had a very frustrating work week and is seeking new employment.

Total saves this week:  ZERO! First time since last November!!!!!    A Huge thank you to the Wilkins family for making sure Kayty was well. It was a kind of vacation for Dad and I, though we now automatically wake up all night, we could return to sleep, and go on with our days without worry.

The Nathan Rice Family
We didn't talk to Nathan till Wednesday night. LOTS of homework already!! He will work in the machine shop early on Friday morning, get credit for that, and qualify for working there in future semesters.

Jessica spent Friday exploring and shared some wonderful pictures...
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He talked to dad en route from California about school and working on their car. it seems that something he had repaired and replaced months ago had already broken! Hard to work in an apartment parking lot rather than in a driveway near a tool filled garage!

Work
Dad's three day week was full of meetings. He tried to show me a screw that had been cut in half and analyzed and revealed that the supplier was cutting it incorrectly. It was like looking at an ultrasound. "Ummm...Whatever you say."

My "week off" was very busy. Being my last week to be able to accomplish April due dates, I completed my visiting teaching, paid bills, and went tot he dentist for my fillings and crown prep. As always, the shots and recovering is worse than the actual procedure. I have a list of goals that I have need to accomplish that is compiled starting at the end of my week off. This week, I wanted to clean and dust one shelf in the china cabinet. I got into it and ended up organizing the whole cabinet and put special dishes on display, kept favorites and prepped the rest to give to Deseret Industries. I also ended up weeding through the Easter decorations and getting rid of old/tired stuff. I had Dee grind down a nail or two on the bathroom door trim and then I filled and painted the rest of the trim around the mirror and door. I did my regular loads of laundry, dusted, vacuumed, scrubbed bathrooms, filled in spreadsheets, prepped and shopped for my month of cub scouts, took a load of stuff to Deseret Industries, sealed the granite kitchen counters, scrubbed the kitchen floor, powdered up the many eggshells given to us (thank you, Cameo and Nano!), restocked the paper towels and toilet paper, made a triple batch of basil walnut pesto from the garden, made dad's germann vanilla (can't have chocolate any more so it's going to be a white or yellow cake) cake frosting, prepared for scouts, prepared to sub in primary tomorrow, and watched Netflix decorating shows to my hearts content.

Dad's Garden
Snow peas have had it, and I just spend time gathering seeds for planting next year. Tomatoes are ripening and we will have to bird net cover soon.It is sad because our crop this year will be minimal. We just can't figure out what is causing the leaves to shrivel up and die. It happened last year, but later in the season, and he made sure he watered better and didn't overwater to ensure proper plant nourishment. They grew fabulously for four months and now the tomatoes on them are getting sunburned due to the leaves dying.  It is a good learning experience for us. If our crop isn't as good this year, we can make changes and just purchase canned tomatoes for the next year. It wasn't that way years ago with a farm. Crop would be planted and worked, and all of a sudden a storm or insects would destroy it...and their income for the year! Dad is trying to determine what went wrong.

Dad's Truck
No truck work this week.

Year of the House
Dad has a few tiles near the tub spout in the bathroom to still take care of, and I need to come up with a new piece of artwork to hang on the wall, but I am counting the bathroom as done. Dad's upcoming projects are creating a cabinet over the kitchen stove cabinets that allows for a vent tube to go out of the house, and then, the master bathroom. We are slowly going to replace the doors, but with Dad out of town this week, we didn't even purchase. 

Dad's birthday
His gift from me came in the form of a gift card that he received on his birthday eve. He got on ebay and purchased a sushi knife.  I took him to Ethan and Cameo's early on Thursday morning and off they headed to Carlsbad State Beach and a Friday 3/4 day fishing excursion.



They watched the sun set till it went into the sea!
Dad called early Friday morning, letting me know there were enough reservations for fishing to assure their trip would happen.




This ended up being the best part of the trip. Let's just say the ocean was very rough. Dad can't throw up, so he spent the entire trip seasick and nauseous. Ethan himself lost his cookies seven times, but was able to feel well enough to catch a barracuda and some other fish.

They had a good evening at the campsight.

Went to the beach on Saturday morning
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Got date shakes on the way home (that would be enough to make ME toss lose my cookies!!)

They got home late Saturday night with stories of more puking on the boat, and lots of fun. Kayty took a tour of their trailer and decided camping might be for her. (It seems she misses the 15 passenger van she and Allison took over as their hotel on wheels on our family camping trips through the years.)


Other highlights
Happy Anniversary to Us! Dad started the day having to be at a very early men's Stake Priesthood Meeting, and we went to church. I had hoped to at least sit together in Sacrament Meeting, but the chorister called 20 minutes before I had to leave to ask me to sub for her, since she hurt her knee. So, it was back and forth for that meeting, and then in Primary for the rest of the morning. When you go through your day to day life, often the bad things that occur seem to come more to mind, but when you stop and look at the big picture, you smile and feel such great joy! It has been a wonderful...albeit interesting, joyful, distressing, and adventurous 36 years, but I do look forward to the next years and eternity!!

Not so highlights
Seasickness...dry hot weather...car troubles in Idaho...that's all I can tell you for now. 

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Week of April 11 - 17, 2016

Highlights:

Spiritual
Dad attended a temple session on Wednesday evening.

Kaylee went with me for the beginning of cub scouts and enjoyed the opening and talking about healthy foods. The cubs ran an obstacle course and we practiced our skit for pack meeting.

We had a missionary farewell in Sacrament Meeting, as well as a change in the Relief Society presidency. This young man who will serve in Chile is going to be a wonderful missionary. We met Jacob on the first Sunday after the ward realignment, and his dad invited us to dinner. He and his younger brother, Wilken, are the most genuine, kind and friendly young men I have ever met. Jacob has been serving in the temple as an officiator for the last couple of months, and I can truly see the blessing of allowing these future missionaries to serve. 

Dad picked up the missionaries on Sunday afternoon and took them to meet Scott Anderson, the neighborhood newsletter operator and organizer of the temple protests years ago. The missionaries want to do service in the area, i.e. yard work, car washing, etc and were offering their services. He declined their offer, saying his newsletter was not used for religious or political efforts. 

I read General Conference talks all week. I printed David A. Bednar's talk and Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk in Priesthood session. I completed the final talk on Sunday afternoon. It was such a wonderful General Conference and I am so thankful to have a prophet and apostles on the earth today that share counsel with us every six months.

I did read a little each day in the Book of Mormon, as our bishop has challenged the ward to do, and am in 1 Nephi 20.

I indexed a little each morning this week and on Tuesday I surpassed my goal for the year of 5000 records indexed. I ended up the week at 5177 records.

Family

The Wilkins Family
Kayty was there visiting all week. Tuesday was the Broadway production of Beauty and the Beast
and this was a souvenir
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The school production of "Aladdin"  was Thursday evening. Kayty tried and tried to get there but her GPS mislead her. I did get some pics from friends to share here
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We had hoped the Wilkins were coming down for a quick trip on Saturday for the wedding reception of Mike's brother, Scott, but poor Gracie got sick and so that was cancelled. I miss those kids something fierce (sorry, Allison and Mike...I do miss you too but I haven't hugged on my grandkiddos since December!)


The Ethan Rice Family
Ethan, Cameo and Kaylee ended their last week at the Arizona Science Center.
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Ethan had to travel to California for a couple of days for work It was originally scheduled for Tuesday but was changed to Wednesday, so Kaylee had an extra day of Daddy picking her up. She loved it! 

The Doran Rice Family
Another week of school and work for this family. Kooper seems to love his day care giver...

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Dad called Doran and chatted on Sunday night. He ended up getting a couple of reloaders on Craigslist. I heard it was a sweet deal...not sure what that means.

Morgan
We had some fun visits this week from Morgan, Christy and her kids and their friends. Morgan stopped by on Friday night for help with his truck and ended up sharing Dad's yummy Chinese food with Nate, Jess, and the missionaries (who dropped in as well). They also came for a swim Saturday afternoon




and then brought back ribs, cole slaw, kale salad and potato salad to share for dinner.


Kayty
Kayty had a wonderful week with the Wilkins in Las Vegas. "Beauty and The Beast" at The Smith Center was wonderful
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Of course, Kayty had to be in costume...
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Here she and Sam are sharing vanilla wafers...
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Kayty went out with a new friend on Friday night. On Saturday, she and Adam headed to the Adventuredome

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And for the first time since November, NO SAVES THIS WEEK!! Thank you so much Kayty for taking good care of yourself!

The Nathan Rice Family
We so enjoyed having Nathan, Jessica and Annalee down for a visit this week. We went out to Nate's favorite Korean restaurant in Chandler on Monday night...

He spoke in Korean and ordered Bulgogi, which seemed to confuse the non Korean speaking Korean waiter. Dinner was so yummy! I am a fan of gochu jong, the spicy red sauce, but I didn't really think too much of rice. (I know you boys are all horrified!). This came in a flaming bowl with meat, vegetables and you stirred it up and the crispy rice, meat, veggies and sauce were amazing!

He spent Tuesday and Wednesday in the garage the entire day working with the mill. He made two tool holders he had designed to use at school next semester. He will work an internship this coming semester in the shop, and then next semester he will be able to earn money working there. He will be assisting students in their machining classes. We had a final visit on Friday afternoon when Kaylee was here. I didn't take pics...I spent my time loading up Annalee with hugs and kisses! They headed back on Saturday. It was originally going to be a two day trip, but Nathan is the new ward clerk and needed to be at bishopric meeting on Sunday morning, so he went straight through.We talked to them at 12:30 am and he had to ignite the pilot light on their water heater, but managed with rolled up paper and the stove.

We talked to Nate on Sunday afternoon. Phonecalls are the next best thing to Sunday visits. He and Annalee were on a Sunday drive (aka let Jessica rest at home and get Annalee to nap) and he was sharing the sounds of the river running and the images of the beautiful greenery that is Idaho at this time of year. He was set apart at church today and is anxious to begin both school tomorrow and serve in his new calling. 

Work
Dad had two long Kaizen events in Tempe on Monday and Tuesday, and still had his daily early morning meetings all week. He ended up traveling quite a bit to suppliers for meetings, his only slow day being Thursday.

It was K week for Kaylee and I. She likes a few things I do, but on Tuesday, she took down my letter K off the cabinet and said, "Take this down! We are done! " Here are some things we managed to do.



Annalee briefly visited on Wednesday, which made Kaylee's grouchy morning much better.






And a final visit with Annalee before they returned home to Idaho.



Dad's Garden
The tomato plants are loaded with tomatoes, but it appears a fungus of some sort has attacked the leaves. We are not quite sure, since they have the symptoms but the causes are too much moisture on the leaves, which is NOT a problem here with only having one day of minimal rain since December. The cure is to use black plastic to keep water from splashing on leaves...which we already do! It is very challenging to grow heirloom tomatoes and keep them healthy! We have eaten nearly all the snow peas and I pick handfuls of seed to plant next year every day. Let us know next October and you can have some to plant at your place. Dad's peppers are doing great! The yellow ones are nearly two inches long and he has bell peppers blooming.

Dad's Truck
No truck work this week.

Year of the House
Dad cut and painted the final mirror molding piece while I was at scouts on Wednesday.He worked on getting the new outdoor kitchen oven that Ethan gave us ready to install - he siliconed and sealed everything he could - and then notice that the new oven is smaller, which will require a ton of work to seal off, so instead, we are going to purchase a new oven brain for the old one and seal it up well.

Other highlights
I got to run every day this week, including a longer run with a rest at the temple on Tuesday. I stayed to see the lights come on. It is always amazing to me, to see them come on...and now that the sun is coming up earlier and earlier, there won't be many more days that the lights will come on in the morning, since the neighbors won't let them get turned on till 5:30 am.

Sharynn shared with me a cousin she had found through the DNA check when she was doing geneology. Look up Lore Olson on Facebook! Sharynn saw a resemblance with her son and Brett. I saw a HUGE resemblance with her and Sharynn!!
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Not so highlights
Nano had a few days of the stomach flu that she is getting over. Other than that, all is well.