Week of August 8-14, 2021

Highlights:

Spiritual

Sunday was good. We enjoyed a wonderful talk by another young man ready to serve a mission. This is a great young man who really had decided against serving a mission, and then shared the experiences and the process to bring him to the decision to serve. 

Dad and I were unable to get any temple appointments for this week. The schedule is all full. 

My daily morning foundation of General Conference talk(s), prayer, scripture study and Come Follow Me study continues each day. 

I have indexed 11,645 records and reviewed 77,214 records so far this year.

Family

The Wilkins Family

School began on Monday for the Wilkins family. So Sunday, they had their back-to-school feast, father's blessings, read "The Kissing Hand" book, and eat kissing hand cookies. They came out so wonderful and what a great tradition. Sadly, Grace has a tummy bug and had to leave church before young women. Grace had a wonderful time with her friend, Katelyn's family in St. George last week. She saw "Beauty and the Beast" at Tuacon (sp?) and had a fun time and lots of good food. Grace is so excited for school this year and has everything squared away in her schedule. Adam had a long night at work once this week, so he had to take the bus until Allison could get off and pick him up. Adam has worked a lot of hours and will be attending an orientation to work at Valvoline this week. He is now a part of adult Sunday school and Elder's quorum and is enduring some of the comments "grown" adults make. They had back-to-school night and got to see Sam's teacher and where he will be sitting. They also met all of Josh's teachers as he will be changing classes according to the subject this year. Allison really likes his social studies teacher. I did get to hear from Josh some of his fun experiences at camp that didn't involve any illness. He had a good time hatchet throwing and enjoyed the trampoline. (Word has it that there were two fifteen-year-old girls jumping at the same time that were quite taken with Josh's whit and sense of humor.) He also enjoyed Capture the Flag with water balloons (like a color war with white shirts and colored water) and he won the scavenger hunt (second place). He really enjoyed the seafood boil.  This week, the family went to the pool a couple of times, bought shoes and clothing for school. Josh also got to go to the temple and perform baptismal ordinances.  Their little red car is having some random troubles with dying. They cleaned out the other car so it's so nice for everyone to drive in. They nearly completed their summer bucket list, except for bowling. Sam's Town early morning bowling deals are no more. They got back to school haircuts and Josh's looked really nice! They keep a record of his haircut on file.

The Ethan Rice Family

Ethan headed out to Pennsylvania again early Monday morning. It was a challenging week as they were told Wade was exposed to the corona virus at preschool the week before. He started a fever and tested positive. Kaylee thus stayed home and she tested positive on Friday. The kids both ran fevers and have a cough but seem to feel well enough to have some fun. Kaylee sent me some pictures of dress up play. 

Cameo started the fever on Thursday and tested positive, and Ethan arrived from Pennsylvania to come home and take care of everyone. So far all are doing pretty good. Fevers were nearly gone and coughs were the only lingering symptom. Kaylee was excited to get a new Chromebook to do schoolwork on. 

The Doran Rice Family

Doran had yet another MRI to try to diagnose and plan his bicep repair. On Thursday, he was able to see a surgeon. It is a 90 percent separation of the bicep from the bone so he will have surgery next week, as soon as Workman's Comp does all it needs to do. Doran is going a bit crazy but is keeping the kids school work and housework caught up and cooking some fantastic meals... one-handed. 

Morgan

Happy Birthday Morgan on Sunday. He spent the day at the lake fishing and had a good week at work. He came over on Saturday and worked on his boat and making dad's jet ski trailer able to haul other things. 

Kayty

Kayty had a good week and enjoying the casual work dress afforded from being at home. She completed some projects to decorate her room she had been working on.

The Nathan Rice Family

Nathan, Jessica and the girls had a good week. School is much better and Annie was so excited to go to art class on Friday. They have so enjoyed having Jessica's grandma in town and have had some fun visits there. We played together on Friday while Nate and Jessica had a little date night. Nathan has been working on building his own kiln to cure his lumber. They are getting a few things done around the house for an inspection to refinance without PMI so that has taken a bit of time. Nathan's garden pumpkins were doing well until our huge rainstorm blew the vines all over the place. They are still hoping all works out well. The girls begin soccer in a few weeks. Annie and Ellie will play on the same team: The Peanut Butter Cups! 

Dad's Garden

Basil and oregano still thriving. Pepper plants are surviving the summer, though it has been a lovely one. Citrus continues to look good. 

Other highlights

Dad's extra work assignment has been going very well. He has been able to assist in many areas and they have expressed gratitude for his knowledge of the parts as well as suppliers that might be able to fill the immediate need. His only challenge is keeping up with both assignments. 

Dad mowed the lawn Monday morning while I went through completely dried raisins. The weather ended up cooler later in the morning than when I jogged.

Judy Pulver came by for a ministering visit on Monday. She had not visited in quite a while so we had a nice chat. I chatted by email with our families we minister to.

I jogged in drizzle on Tuesday morning and on Thursday, after carefully checking both my weather and radar aps before heading out on my jog, I was drenched in a downpour and jogged/swam home the last 3/4 mile. Nice and cool but quite a surprise. I woke up Saturday to pouring rain. I never could get my run in and our rain gage measured nearly 3 inches of rain. Our yard and pool love it!

Thursday was cool and cloudy: perfect baking weather. I baked three loaves of bread using the mesquite flour dad had ground up (about 1/4 of the flour was mesquite) and made some cranberry banana coffee cake. 

Dad and I took a few hikes this week too at Thunderbird Park. It was later in the day so we could only go part way but it was nice. The pic below expresses my displeasure at folks taking pictures of every single thing they do.

Not so highlights

Dad went to help at the local food rescue and distribution and found that the roof of the building had collapsed in the rain, breaking a pipe and flooding the facility. No food distribution now or in the near future. This was a small non profit so it was so sad.