Week of November 16 - 22, 2015

Highlights:

Spiritual:
My ponderize scripture for the week is found in The Pearl of Great Price, Moses 7: 18
"And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them."

Dad attended the temple Tuesday evening to do some baptismal and other ordinance work. I started my Wednesday in my favorite early morning temple session. (I was thinking that one year ago that morning was the first public session held at the Phoenix Temple, and I was blessed to be in that one!

Dad and I also attended the Wednesday evening session there.

Our Sacrament meeting today was another wonderful one, with great talks, especially the ones given by President Day and his wife Angie. Much to think about when it comes to faith and not comparing ourselves to others. I served as Primary chorister today since the regular chorister needed to be at a grandson's ordination...we Grandma's stick together! The kids were great and the singing was awesome. Primary is the BEST place to be!!

 I tried to index on two occasions this week but both times our computer and Family Search had problems. No more names completed this week.

In scripture reading, I am in 1st Nephi 17  in the Book of Mormon. Dad's reading is as follows: Book of Mormon - Helaman 7, Bible - Numbers 27.

Family:

The Wilkins Family - We didn't hear anything from the Wilkins but Kayty said they had been having electrical problems near their computer and that might be the culprit. We know it is a very busy time, school, musical practice, doctor appointments, piano lessons, and Thanksgiving this week.

The Ethan Rice Family
Monday and Tuesday were pretty typical days for this family. Tuesday night, they headed out to...
Disneyland!!
Here are some pics of their fun.
Wednesday morning breakfast...










From Friday


And finally on Saturday, they went to the ocean. I wonder what she thought when her only prior experience in ocean sounds was holding seaschells in our sandbox up to her ears





Looks like they had a wonderful trip!

The Doran Rice Family
Doran and Amber were busy at work, and the kids were busy at school and daycare. Here are some pics
Kelsie with a friend...


 and Kooper at the park...


Kooper is NOT a Santa fan...at least yet...

 

 

 

 

 

And Kelsie helping Amber and her animal rescue group




Morgan
Late Tuesday, a friend had been in contact with Morgan and he was working his way home. I saw this on my iphone early Saturday morning

This man sitting on my bag is named Jerry he turns 81 in January he was pushing a walker with a suitcase on it and asked if he could sit down and take a break he had already walked several miles so I sat and talked with him. His wife had fallen ill and wanted to spend what time was left with her he left his elderly home and was beginning a 50 mile walk home to be with her. I noticed he only had bandanas to wrap around his hands to keep them warm I was blessed enough to be able to give him my mittens and a beanie he soon got up thanked me for my kindness and continued on his journey home. I thanked him for his time and for the example he showed me. "My Love is the best thing that's happened in my life" -Jerry


I am truly thankful for the kindness Morgan showed. Makes a mom very happy!

Kayty
Kayty returned from Vegas Monday night and had such a good time. Thank you Mike, Allison, and family for being her "Happiest Place on Earth" next to Disneyland. She had a good time shopping, though she is still searching for one cd cover she is missing.She worked all week, and went out with some friends from work for "Girls' Night" on Saturday.

The Nathan Rice Family
Nathan spent his week working hard both at work and at home. He is trying to get that truck finished. Annalee had her two month checkup on Wednesday: 10 pounds 5 ounces. Healthy. Happy (until all those immunizations).Nate came on Saturday (steering column in hand...not baby in hand - sad face) and worked for hours fixing that and getting seat belt mount extensions started

Work
Dad spent Monday in meetings. The first meetings took nearly two hours to schedule everyone's furlough days. He had selected the first week, but later in the day, he was asked to hid the fact that they would spread his over two weeks time: three days one week and two days another. They have to have coverage at all suppliers, and between vacation time that needs to be taken or lost, and this furlough, it is crazy! He spent the rest of his time in other meetings.Tuesday was the same. His furlough was changed to last one entire week, instead of split. Starting that Monday and ending the next Monday morning, no work computer, no work i-phone. (Thus, no hot spot for me when we drive to and from Vegas.) More meetings Wednesday and Thursday. Moods are kind of down. This is management trying to determine ways for suppliers to save money...and then pass that savings on to Honeywell. Not. Gonna. Happen. Plus, you figure that the raise every single employee thought they received in April now disappears with one week of furlough. Dad is thinking of taking time during that furlough and speaking to some vocational education institutions about what he needs to become certified.Thursday, they announced a lay off in January. More meetings. Friday was full of meetings, including an early morning meeting discussing the lay off. Since four people are taking early retirement in a couple of weeks (they have HAD it with Honeywell), that will count for their department lay off requirement. That makes finding somewhere else to work even more important. Dad doesn't work in a place where there are lots of underlings. His coworkers have been there just as long as he has.

My Monday was filled with dusting, mopping, vacuuming, laundry, final living room decorating (still haven't found a Christmas tree for Dad's hunting ornaments), preparing for weeks ahead, purchasing the rest of the Thanksgiving cranberry salad ingredients, making a Thanksgiving Blessing mix for my visiting teaching sisters and getting that ready to deliver, and my visiting teachers came for a quick and distracted visit. I could tell they were really busy and they talked about Young Women and then headed out. I had a nice run Monday and Tuesday, with no rain and colder weather. I picked a ton of key limes to squeeze and got the pool brushed on Monday too.Tuesday was cleaning, and LOTS of stocking wrapping. I got the Wilkins Family Stocking gifts wrapped and put and wrapped in boxes. No sneaky Joshy is going to rearrange these! lol While Dad was at the temple, I wrapped Nates and Annalees and packed them up in boxes appropriate to be repacked to move back to Idaho.I delivered my visiting teaching gifts on Wednesday, and then helped Dad by organizing some garage shelves (don't worry...he was right there so I didn't get rid of anything important), cleaning off the outside freezer, hauling stuff to the shed. Back porch got cleaner as well. Dirty work though! The rest of the week included some Christmas shopping for Dad, bill paying, spreadsheet filling, grocery shopping, picking up tables from Grandma, wrapping stocking gifts (Wilkins all complete, as are Nathan, Annalee, and Ethan - though I am still working on the main gifts for many people. I know hardly anyone reads this, but if you don't want cash, I NEED hints! - this is not a message for Allison, Kayty, Morgan, Nathan, Jessica, Doran and Amber or grandkids) Saturday night, we went out and finally got my turkeys and potatoes...and it took MAJOR efforts at two stores for that! Everything on my list for the week finally checked off!!

Dad's Truck
Dad spent Monday night working on installing rear brake lines. He worked for hours and got part of one in. It is intricate work and requires lots of fitting and bending. He did a lot of clean up in the garage and found some more parts that needed installation. Everything is on the truck so that the rear bumper can be installed.

This is the pic he shared for "Front End Friday". Front End Friday???? Really???

Dad's Garden
I picked a lot of lettuce on Monday for Dad to have at least a couple of salads, and then a bunch again on Thursday and Saturday. He has tomato plants he has nurtured from seed ready to go into the ground.

He planted more lettuce starts where there was room too. 

Here are pics of the peppers.

He had some seed starts: red maruga scorpions and chocolate naga viper, but the are NOT liking our weather: goldilocks seedlings that find it either too hot or too cold! Only three are left alive and they like it under the growlights on my washing machine.

Other highlights
We happened to be watching the evening local news when the weather guy and Beth McDonald flipped the "switch " to turn on Christmas music! Love it!!!

Friday morning run and my first house with Christmas lights, right near the temple. Not a good pic but so wonderful!!! Jogging at Christmas time is the BEST!

They also had red and green polka dot lights all over the house front. Awesome!

We cleaned off the big outside freezer (that is turned off most of the year) and plugged it in to get ready for the turkeys...and it wouldn't work! I took off the panel where the start thingy is. The compressor was running. We tried for two days. Then when we went to Dorrie's to get the tables, we saw a small freezer out in front of her house that Curtis was getting rid of.

Tender Mercy! It worked and with a little glue, and a piece of something to seal, we had a home for two turkeys. I didn't bake cupcakes like I thought I would but we will have plenty of dessert for Thanksgiving with Grandma's pumpkin chocolate chip cake and Nate's homemade pecan pie.

My dad graduated from ASU when it was Arizona State College rather than University. He didn't watch much football at all...but ALWAYS watched the Territorial Bowl: the game between Arizona State and University of Arizona. Always. I watched the pranks all week. The one ASU did to U of A was classic - giving U of A and southern Arizona back to Mexico, and some journalism students working for the U of A newspaper have learned to verify their sources. They never did paint the A on A Mountain in Tempe red and blue. Since the game on Saturday wasn't on regular tv (and I did not have time to sit and watch a whole football game) I kept checking on the computer...over and over. I thought of my dad sitting watching that game at night while I accidentally overflowed the toilet and he had to plunge instead of watch for awhile. Well, it the Sun Devils of ASU WON the game!!!! Fear the fork!!! No Pitty for the Kitty!!! I cheered for you, Dad, and had a great time remembering!!!



Not so highlights
After nights of low flying helicopters, windows shaking, Dad called the Phoenix Police Department at near midnight Wednesday and found out there was a practice operation occurring between the military and local law enforcement. People were complaining from all across the valley. Apache helicopters are LOUD!

I have been watching the weather forecast all week. On Monday and Tuesday, our Thanksgiving weather was forecast to be 78 degrees. Perfect for tables set up outside! Then, day by day, I kept losing degrees. As of Friday, the forecast was to be 60 degrees. We are eating indoors! I did see, though, that the forecast last night said 62 degrees. Maybe it will get back up to 78 by Thursday???