Week of January 17 - 23, 2021

Highlights:

Spiritual

We had a good Sunday. Church was good and we endured our high council speaker and had a wonderful solo by a ward member to enjoy. 

Temples remained closed for work for the dead.

I completed my fifth time and began my sixth time enjoying General Conference talks daily. My morning foundation of Conference talk, reading in the Book of Mormon, and 20 minutes Come Follow Me study have been so helpful. 

I have indexed 1173 records and reviewed 8158 records so far this year. 

Family

The Wilkins Family

We had a good Marco Polo visit on Sunday. The family is doing well. Mike is continuing to work many hours during this busy season for Amazon. He is also working on one of their cars, which is having alternator troubles. Allison did another week of hard work during the shut down at the temple. This week returns to a more reduced hour schedule as Nevada is in its umpteenth month of a 30 day pause. The kids are doing well. Adam played all the Sacrament Meeting music on Sunday and has a special musical number coming up to play. Grace's arm continues to hurt but after a long visit to urgent care, there was no apparent break in the bone. Her Young Women's leader found her a special treat: her favorite Sweet Tart chews candies. She used her day off from school time to prepare for Sam's birthday by blowing up tons of balloons, wrapping his gifts and decorating the house with streamers, plus she made Sam some crepes for his birthday breakfast. Josh is doing well and will return to school this week after his Covid symptom restriction. He is a happy kid as always. Sam had a wonderful seventh birthday, complete with his aforementioned breakfast crepes, Orange chicken for dinner, and gifts that included Bey Blades, slime and an indoor basketball hoop. 

The Ethan Rice Family

Ethan, Cameo and the kids are doing well. They continue working and schooling remotely. Wade is all ready to start playing tball in a few weeks. 

The Doran Rice Family

Doran, Amber, Kelsie and Kooper are doing well. Doran works long hours and Amber is back remote working. The girls had fun while the boys went camping on Friday night. 

Morgan

Morgan doing well and busy at work. 

Kayty

Kayty enjoyed one day to sleep in and then worked overtime the rest of the week. Nothing much else to do other than watching movies as she works. 

The Nathan Rice Family

Nathan, Jessica and the girls had a good week with a few bumps and bruises. Ellie fell into the shopping cart and hurt her upper gum so all trekked to the dentist to see if stitches were needed. Thankfully all was well and there was no charge. Jessica's parents were exposed to Covid so she has been busy getting them groceries, etc. Nathans' work is as busy as ever. 

Dad's Garden

Snow peas are very plentiful, and I got a lot of basil off for a couple of meals this week. We have small tomatoes on one set of vines and we picked and ate one cabbage. Citrus isn't as plentiful but sure is tasty. 

Family History
 More scanned letters from my dad. It seems he was writing to his sister, my Aunt Muriel, and they referred to each other as skunk. 

Other highlights

This really wasn't a highlight. Dad walked into the garage on Monday morning and the water heater from the solar panel was spewing water all over. He cleaned up and got all the hot water turned off. Later, he contacted Jessica's Dad and they set out to locate a water heater like that one. Seems none in Arizona...and it is being shipped across the country now. Hopefully sometime next week. So, it has been a week of sink hair washing and sink sponge baths, and adding hot stove water to laundry loads.

I visited Mom on Thursday. She is really confused and paranoid. I did get to meet her nurse practicioner and she is a very nice and fantastic person. So glad she is taking care of mom. We are trying to figure out what to do to help Mom not feel like everyone, especially me, is trying to kill her. I did get her Christmas tree undecorated and hauled and stored away here. 

Doran organized a guy campout on Friday night. Dad, Kooper and Nathan could come. Morgan ended up having to work. They enjoyed sleeping out near Lake Pleasant, a little rain, good food and some target shooting. 

Sporadic rain has been very enjoyable this week.

Not so highlights

Another long week and a disappointing outcome of an election. I am trying to pray every morning and night for the country and our leaders. Friday was a rough pill to swallow, however, as we woke up to our gas prices going up 25 cents a gallon and Kayty's insulin costs skyrocketing. Not sure why President Biden felt it so necessary to put so many workers out of work on his first day in office and then to make insulin and epi-pens no longer low cost on his second day.