Week of August 15 - 21, 2016

Highlights:

Spiritual
My Wednesday began at the Phoenix temple. A wonderful session and an opportunity to create forever families. Dad ended the day in his regular temple session.

Cub scouts went well on Wednesday evening and the boys completed their Coin adventure. I spent hours during the week preparing for our next adventure: paws on the path.

We had great meetings at church today. I learned and grew so much!! The speakers in Sacrament Meeting were great. Joy Black spoke on Christ and the atonement and shared her testimony. Brother Greg Dawson of the high council shared a wonderful message on Prayer. He spoke about Alma 34 and 37 and referred to the Faith Cycle. He also challenged every one to double the time you spend in prayer. In Relief Society, we talked about the Sacrament and it's symbolic ties to both Passover and Easter. We talked a lot about spiritual preparation before attending church and partaking of the Sacrament. Sister Call, the teacher, had us select our favorite Sacrament hymn and then she would point and sisters would read a phrase from that hymn. It was such a spiritual time. I decided that to help me prepare better for partaking of the Sacrament, I will have Sacrament hymns playing as I get ready for church.

I am in 2 Nephi 3  in the Book of Mormon. I have so enjoyed taking my time reading. or listening to one chapter, or sometimes two chapters, at a time. I especially enjoy reading while I am in the chapel at the temple waiting for the session to begin.

I have currently indexed 24388 records so far this year. 

Family

The Wilkins Family
This family had a good week. Here are some of the messages Grace, the Wilkins Family Ace Reporter, shared:
   I love you, Grammy.
   Look at my new shoes.
   "redr3e2egyuilf8kuiyhtrftgvh45uj6tgfrghj8jhytgrf805ghtyuj" from Sam
   Tomorrow we are having a tea party with mini pancakes. We made them. (On Tuesday)
   "I luv yow  Luv Josh"
   It was so much fun. I went to calabunga bay and had pizza and lemonade. It is a bg pool with crazy huge water slides and a cute toddler area which is so much fun!!! It was with my best school friends Adelaide and Julia.
   Nobody knows their school teacher yet!!! 
   I am sad Katelyn (her best friend ) is moving 20 minutes away!!! The house is in henderson so we have to do everything like sleepovers and my birthday and we are doing the pinata with her.
   We are going to have a lot of play dates.
   We are going (to the library) on Saturday instead!!! Adam is going on a campout!!! One night of no Adam!!! We are going to Sam's Club now. 
   I went to the store. I got hot Cheetos.

   Sam is a major hunk!!! That is what his shirt says.

   Sam said "Gammy?" every time you texte and when I say yes he says "Gammy!"  

   It is leftovers night!!! Make anything you can find. (I found) tilapia and blueberries and josh is having enchiladas. I found the dish first.
Allison shared a beautiful piano solo by Adam on Facebook. He has come so far in such a short time and is an amazing pianist!!


The Ethan Rice Family
Cameo and Kaylee headed to visit Cameo's new doctor on Monday. Baby boy Rice is doing well, and Kaylee enjoyed getting to use an umbrella and wear rain boots: foreign things here!

Another storm that included thunder allowed us to see this joyous face

Cameo messaged me early Friday morning, which ended up being during her lunch break there! Oh, the time zone craziness.She saw a deer behind their home today...

And she and Kaylee took a lovely walk. It looks lovely there!

They are slowly emptying boxes and getting used to the different time. Since Cameo's work hours are Phoenix hours, she says she feels sometimes like she is living in two worlds!

On Saturday, they enjoyed more rainy weather and went to their new favorite ice cream spot...Brusters Real Ice Cream


The Doran Rice Family
Kooper enjoyed an awesome day of daycare/preschool on Tuesday! He got to paint a fish with celery!

Tamara moved into her own place with a couple of friends and that was a big transition time for this household. 

I received this on Sunday afternoon

What is on my grandson's head? Is that a University of Arizona hat??? NO WAY!! We are ASU devil fans!!! Fear the Fork you stinky kittys!!!
Morgan
Morgan and Christy must be very busy. No news from them this week.

Kayty
Kayty went all pink on Monday.
 
She managed to do so without making my bathroom all pink, so that is quite a score! She had to redo some color on Wednesday and was deemed sufficiently pink by Thursday.


 She is loving her new job and, according to Barb Pell, they like her. It might even turn full time, which would be awesome since she has to get her own health insurance come February.

Total saves this week: 1 major

The Nathan Rice Family
Nathan, Jessica and Annalee had a good week before they got to have Papa come for a visit. Annalee is really loving books...

Or loving their many uses. Here, a book is also an entertaining floor mat. 

More on this family is shared under Dad's Idaho vacation below.


Work
Dad was super busy at work He is working with suppliers here and scheduling visits in Utah when he and Nathan drove there Friday. His boss sent an email late Monday night informing the group he would be retiring on September 1st. Dad has lost his second boss in a row to early retirement due to a reduction.

My work week included the normal cleaning, vacuuming, dusting, laundry, plus I trimmed and hauled branches, cleaned up around our lime tree and trimmed off dead branches, cleaned some of the refrigerator shelves, cleaned out some kitchen drawers, baked muffins for dad using up the leftover strawberries from last week and incorporating some jojoba flour into them. It ended up I exchanged one third of the regular flour for jojoba flour. He really liked them! Then, I hauled off trash and boxes, more leaves and branches, lugged buckets of water (the water from the a/c drips into a bucket and with the high humidity, it gets too heavy to lift once a day), cleaned the front porch, cleaned out the pool filters and brushed the pool after the wind storms dumped every leaf in Phoenix into our pool, fed, watered chickens, gathered eggs, recovered date palm dates with bird netting, cleaned up pool toys, marketed some extra playroom toys,grocery shopped, stocking stuffer shopped,cleaned out more gunk from the pool skimmer baskets, resupplied chlorine to the pool, changed the water in all the chickens dishes and bowls (we have larger containers they stand in on hot days and the water has to be changed), hauled wood bits to the pizza oven, hauled tools to the shed, cooked, replaced two more times the bird netting on date palm tree, put water on big pine tree,


Dad's Garden
I worked to keep it alive. I watered the peppers on Thursday that looked extremely wilted.

Dad's Truck
No truck work

Year of the House
We had a very productive appointment at Floor and Decor on Monday. At first, the drawing we left for them on Saturday was virtually untouched when we arrived, but after some conversation, we were able to get a good design with plenty of what we both wanted. We were trying to fit in a tub, so we would have a full bath, but there wasn't any way, so we will go from tub to shower only in the master bedroom. Now, all we need it two strong sons to help us demo the old tub and tear down walls. Hint hint, Doran and Morgan.

He got a lot of work done on the cabinet doors but is still trying to locate the correct router bit to finish the door edges. 

Other highlights
I jogged Tuesday with Orions Belt behind me and an errant meteor shooting across the sky at my side. Pretty awesome!

Saw this on Facebook: pics of cousin Marissa's kids first day of school   Britton - 5th grade, Matilda - 8th grade, Killian - High School Senior



I attended a Multi Stake preparedness class on Thursday night to take notes for dad. It was on medicinal plants and essential oils. The essential oils part was somewhat of a reminder but the medicinal plant part was fascinating. It was taught by Trey Matson, MD...the dr. that delivered Kayty and Nathan. He retired from medicine years ago but is pursuing certification as an herbologist. His knowledge is amazing. He always tempered his information with caution, but it was fascinating what he had learned to do with plants and herbs.

 Dad headed to Idaho on Thursday to visit Nathan and get a vacation doing what he loves to do: fish. Here he is on the plane...

And after waiting in the wrong line for his rental car, waiting in the right line for his rental car, and waiting for his suitcase, he picked up Nate, Jess and Annalee and headed out for dinner and looking around.

At the machine shop at BYU-I

In Utah on Friday...

 They decided to return to Rexburg that night, rather than stay in a hotel, so Dad went to visit Jeff and Mardene Smith, and Nate, Jess and Annalee attended a wedding reception for one of Jessica's friends.

Dad took a more "scenic " route home (it might have been scenic if the sun had been up. ) He ended up on the wrong road and took longer to return to Idaho than he had planned. They all finally arrived home safely about midnight.

Dad called me early Saturday morning. I will share the account from Nate and Jess's facebook

We woke up in a panic this morning because we had slept through our alarm and the house was freezing, and we hadn't heard the baby at all. Nathan gets up to find Doran Rice had pulled baby out of bed, had been playing together with her toys and feeding her breakfast. 😌 It was the sweetest thing ever! And we got to sleep in! Go grandpa!

He did really well. Found a bottle, cleaned it out, made new formula, changed her wet diaper, and then let me talk to her as she happily drank her bottle and played with her toys. Truly an epic score for Papa!!! He is always amazing me!!!

Once everyone was up and ready, they went fishing. The weather was beautiful for them!!

Sunday, they all attended church. Great meetings, he said. Annalee started coming down with a cold so, after lunch, Papa stayed with her while Nate and Jess attended meetings.

From a Sunday drive...

Not so highlights
There was a storm Saturday...coming from the northeast. It was perfect conditions for us...except we only got a few drops of rain. People near us got hailed on and deluged. The Rainless Rice House remains. I did get some awesome cloud pics though...