Scorching the World

The last two days are a blur of visiting with my favorite people and feeding children. It seemed as though as soon as we finished cleaning up from one meal, children were hungry and needed to eat again. But we shopped various times to different stores, played new games, watched movies, and worked on hanging the TV on Tanya's fireplace. On Friday Trina had thought to stay until evening and we were having a fun little trip to Target when she got a call from her husband that he had to go back home to in to work. So we cut the shopping short and she went right back to Tanya's and packed and left town. Way too soon. On Saturday it took a while to clean up the house and get out of there with M&B, and we left shortly after 1pm. After a snack stop in Los Banos, we got to T&P's about 4pm. Some of us gathered and made a run to IKEA and then picked up Ry on the way back to Tami's. That made us 45 minutes late for Mila's party and there were a lot of people waitin...

On Wednesday afternoon we moved the party from Trina's house to Tanya's. We all packed up and worked at getting out of the house as early as possible, but Tom and I were the first to leave. We took Ivon and Maggie with us and picked up Draven on the way. To our surprise Nina wanted to go with us, too, so the 4 of them were squished in the back seat for the 2 1/2 hour trip. They are all really skinny and had fun back there, so it was okay. We decided to stop in Los Banos to get some food cause the kids were hungry and they chose Taco Bell. We ordered and sat down to wait for the food. But we had only been there a little while when Nina said, "Hey, there's Oscar!" Sure enough, M & B had just arrived in Los Banos, too, and stopped at the same Taco Bell for a snack! So we ate and visited and eventually headed out again. After we all arrived we ate and hung out, waiting for T & C. We hated to have too much fun without them but they didn't get here till ...

Christmas morning people got up slowly. There were no little children waking up all the adults with excitement about opening presents. I guess everyone was too tired from the night before. So we got up slowly and Tom and I started breakfast. As the kids got up, they went to their stockings which had been placed below a fireplace that Ravenna and Maggie had drawn and taped to the wall. We had another good Tom breakfast and cleaned up and then went to the presents. I forgot to mention that on Sunday when we did our gift exchange, the kids had all chipped in to get us 2 huge suitcases! Just what we needed! All through the gift exchange and all through the day, whenever Oscar was too sad or frustrated he would come to me and say, "Grandma, I need a present for me to unwrap." Or "Grandma, I need Amy to get off the comPUIter." It's pretty cute that he thinks of me as the last resort to have his problems solved. Mostly there is nothing I can do for him but he keeps...

Since we celebrated our combined Christmas on Sunday, Monday (Christmas Eve)  became a total relax day. Amid the relaxation, we managed to get to Target when it first opened before anybody else was there, so we breezed in and out. And we went to a thrift store where they had all clothing 50% off! I only found 1 blouse I liked but it only cost $1.50 and is really pretty! It has been raining all week, and rain was forecast for the whole upcoming week, but the sun came out on Christmas Eve, so when Marc and Alissa and Tami and Phil came over, we went to play tennis together. Of course the courts were totally empty because the rest of the world was shopping! We had a total of 22 people spread all over the courts! Marc brought his dog Vigo, and Tami brought her dog, Red, so some of the kids spent the whole time chasing or running with dogs. Alissa, Tami, and I spent most of the time sitting in a corner watching and holding little ones. It was cold, but when the kids were running, they...

Today we had Mike and Becky's family, Tanya and Cai (but without all the rest of the family) and Draven visiting to go to Church together. It is such a wonderful feeling to be bound by our faith and beliefs. It was a nice program for Sacrament meeting, and the Sunday School and Relief Society lessons were really good. After Church, we arrived at Trina's to find Marc and Alissa had just arrived. Tami and Phil weren't due for a couple of hours, so we prepared the rest of the food and then sat around and talked till they came. The grandchildren had a good time and even the ones who hadn't seen each other for a very long time, acted like they had grown up together and played so good together. It was sprinkling lightly when we left for Church, and rained quite hard while we were at Church. To walk from the Car to the house, it rained lightly, but from then on it poured so hard with wind that whipped the rain in all directions. It literally came down in sheets and we were...

Today Tom and I stayed up way too late last night watching a movie with Trina and kids and had a hard time waking up this morning. We dragged out of bed and Tom fixed his breakfast burritos and we dressed and left for Tami's house. The truth is, Tom woke up just fine and started breakfast, but I couldn't wake up and finally when I found out it was past 8, I jumped up and ran to dress. We left earlier than we need to because Tom wanted to see if he could find an overcoat to use here and in Utah before we leave for Chile. He doesn't have one and we didn't want to spend much, as we plan to leave it behind when we leave the states. So we stopped at a thrift store, and it had barely opened, so there was hardly anybody else there. We found a Christian Deor overcoat for $3.99 and grabbed it. When we got it to the car, i could see how dirty it was. Tom was afraid of being mistaken for a homeless man, so he borrowed Chris' suit coat to use in SF. We met Tami at her hou...

We're finally at the days I've been working towards for the past many weeks. I've been preparing gifts, wrapping, cleaning, packing and getting ready for Christmas an for the last weeks before our mission departure. The plan was to leave early this morning. But Tanya got called to go to a work luncheon for her new job and I needed to babysit until about 1:00 pm. And Tom still had not finished all he wanted to do in Tranquillity before the sale went through. He has spent every day there for as long as possible and still isn't finished. He said he would work last night till midnight and then today from 6am to noon. But he came home last night about 10:30 because he got too tired to stay till midnight. But he still got up and left by 6am today. I wasn't sure how long he would be, so I didn't dare start baking anything, but I spent all morning packing stuff to go to storage or to  take to Trina's.  By the time Ton got home I had the whole entry lined up with...

I would love to say that this time that Tom and I are going through right now is THE MOST EXCITING time we've ever had. We are just a couple of weeks away from going back to Chile and seeing the country and people that we love so much. We are shopping, doing paperwork, putting things in order, packing, and doing Christmas among all of that. What could possibly be more exciting? But can it compare to graduating from high school and going off to college? Or to being called on a building mission and working with Frank Holland, Jeffery Holland's father? Or going to Chile on my 2nd mission? Or can it compare to when we got married -  the dating, the courtship, the 2 week engagement??? Can it compare to how we felt 44 years ago when we met, fell in love, and got married all within 2 months? Could it be more exciting or wonderful than that? Or how about the birth of each of my children, of holding the darling little babies and being surrounded by my cute little ones? Can life get ...

Wow. I wish everybody could go hear Draven in concert. I wish I had a cd of it; I'd buy one for everyone. Tom worked part of the day Friday and then went to work on a rental. When he got home, we took off for the Bay Area. We got to Trina's about 9:30 pm and Trevor let us know that we had missed scriptures and prayer. He and Dexter and Geneva were bouncing off the walls in the livingroom, so excited to see us. It's so nice to be loved. We watched an episode of McGyver with the older kids (and Trina) and then watched a really good movie so we got to bed pretty late. Saturday morning we (Tom) made breakfast and we hung out a little. I helped Trina make 2 cheesecakes for her ward Christmas party that night. I sure wanted to eat them both when we finished! Tom got a nap while we did that, and then we headed to Tami's about noon. She wasn't there at that moment, so we ran a couple of errands (there are always thing we can do in/around Oakland). Then ...

What? Yeah. Things are beginning to end for us. Last night was the last time we went to bed by 9pm in order to get up by 4:30 am to go to the temple. We were officially released from our service there today. I will NOT miss getting up at 4:30 on a Saturday morning; however, I WILL miss the sacrifice of getting up at 4:30 on a Saturday morning. Sacrifice Sanctifies Service. If I had energy right now I'd look up who said that, but it is true. We loved serving in the temple and the sacrificed involved in doing the service made it more sweet. It really was a big sacrifice for us to give 1/2 of our only day off every week to serve in the temple. It severely limited how often we could visit the kids; it meant that if we did need to go to the Bay Area, we had to leave after getting out of the temple at 12:30 pm and drove 2 1/2 hours, spent a few hours there, and then turned around and drove back the same night, instead of going out on Friday night and spending one night there and ...

I got to go spend a couple of days and nights with my grandchildren on Wednesday and Thursday. Mostly the older kids took care of everything, but Trina had scheduled the missionaries to come for dinner on Thursday, so I helped the kids carry that off and it turned out fun. I also helped them get up some Christmas lights outside to surprise their parents. I was going to leave Trina's on Friday morning as soon as they got Geneva off to school, but Trina convinced me to stay till after commute traffic eased up. But I'm listening to Eragon's Inheritance, so I thot I might as well sit in traffic where I could listen to it. I took off at 9:15am. The traffic wasn't too bad getting out of Fremont or San Jose, but the rain was REALLY bad. Many times it rained so hard I almost couldn't see the car in front of me. We had to slow way down, but I kept thinking, "that's ok, I have a good book to listen to." I stopped in Los Banos to stretch my legs and wake...

I have mentioned many times about the 2 big projects I've been working on for the past many, many weeks. It has pretty much been my focus every day, all day, ad nauseum. 'Course I had to take some time off the focus to put together the annual Grandkids Christmas party last Saturday. Tom and I planned out skits and jokes to put together a video, and some crafts to keep them busy while I burned DVDs, and lots of snacks. We also had gift bags for each to take their stuff home in. It turned out pretty good; the kids had lots of fun, as they always do. So after that 'distraction' from my real focus (A little distraction of what is really important that took me away from what really isn't so important), I started this week totally dedicated to getting as much done on both projects as was humanly possible. I got renewed energy for the transcribing of Tom's files when he told me I could just get as much done this week as possible and then quit, not matter how much s...

Sunday is always my favorite, but my favorite of all the Sundays of the year is the Sunday that we get to go sing The Messiah at the First Presbyterian Church in Fresno. It has a huge chapel that even has a balcony. Close to 800 people gather from the Fresno area to sing it. In this presentation, they allow anyone who wants to, to sing the solos. All who desire to join in the solos go up to the front when it's their turn and try to keep up. There are always so many sopranos and altos who want to, that they just all sit towards the front. There are probably 60 or 70 of each who sing the solos. The rest of us sing along with the soloists under our breath where no one can hear. This year there were 4 tenors; last year there was only 1, but he is REALLY good. When it came to the bass solos, sometimes there were 3 and sometimes there were 6, depending on the difficulty. The orchestra is really good, too, and this year I think they sounded even better. The trumpet soloist was fantastic; ...

We had a great Thanksgiving at Tanya's house. We had wonderful and delicious food and didn't make too much of a mess before we were too tired to care. About dessert time, the adults began playing Golf (the card game) while kids watched movies. When we were almost finished with one game, Todd's daughter and husband came and we began another round with them. It was really fun and we laughed a lot. The best part was that I won - the first game. The 2nd game I was helping kids and de-boning the turkey inbetween turns. When my hands were messy, Tom took my turns. So I didn't really care that I didn't win that one. It was still lots of fun. On Friday (Black Friday when EVERYONE goes shopping for great deals) we relaxed. I got things ready for the grandkids party on Saturday. For lunch we made our annual turkey enchiladas and they turned out wonderful! Yum. After lunch we took all the kids to play tennis while Tanya and Todd went to a funeral. After they got back, we too...

I have mentioned the two projects that I'm working on and trying to finish before the end of the year. Well, one is transcribing Tom's files and getting all the names of the residents of all the parks he has worked in the past 5 years into the computer. Later we'll figure out how to get them from my computer to his company's, but that's another blog. Yesterday I woke up at 5 and began working on them. Tanya and Cai came in around 9am and we were chatting about what would be happening on that (Thanksgiving) day. I told her I had counted and figured out that I need to transcribe 10 files a day in order to finish by the end of the year. She said, "Oh that's great!" Then I told her I had been working on them since 5am and had not quite finished 5! That was an eye opener, especially for me. I did get my 10 done yesterday in spite of all the festivities and spending most of the day cooking or eating, but it took me more than 6 hours. I don't know if I ...

It is so fun to be at Trina's house.  We slept pretty good on the air mattress that we keep here. I'm just always cold on it because the mattress full of air is cold. But tonight we'll put a blanket on the mattress under me for insulation. That will work great. But we woke up at 6 (Tom had been awake for a while) and I wasn't too happy to see that Caeli and Geneva were already awake. They didn't go to sleep last night until nearly 11pm. But they were pretty happy today and had lots of fun together. I had fun just being with Trina and her kids. It is very rewarding to see the joy and happiness they have in their home.  Ziona walks whenever someone is encouraging her to go from one person to another. When she wants someone to pick her up, she lifts up her little arms to them and says, "Here."  One time she had been sad, and I was consoling her, when Spencer came up and asked her if she wanted him to hold her. She made 2 little sob sounds and then said, ...

I have been on jury duty all week. Or at least on call for jury duty. Every night I had to remember to check the website. I'm glad they've updated that. We used to have to call a recorded message and pay attention for 5 + minutes while they read different dockets and trial numbers and discern if mine was one of the ones needed or released. Now all I had to do was go to the website, punch in my numbers and there was the message nice and clear. Every day it said to check back tomorrow - until Thursday night it said I had to go in. For the first time I was called to the Fresno Superior court instead of Madera since we are staying with Tanya. I have to say, Madera is a ghetto neighborhood courthouse compared to Fresno. Fresno has a nice building with all the amenities  In Madera the jury room was in a portable - and not a clean shiny one, but old and run-down looking one. In Fresno they had 2 DVDs for us to watch on a big screen that helped us understand the procedures and the pr...

Today I transcribed a few more files for Tom and copied 2 more tapes to DVD. I only checked the mail twice. The call did not come. Again. 6 1/2 weeks. Tonight Tom went out with the missionaries, Tanya went to a Twilight marathon with a friend, Todd had parent/teacher conferences, and I babysat. But it was beautiful weather today; cool and clear and clean feeling but not cold enough for a coat. Tom and I walked in the morning, and I ran an errand in the evening. It started sprinkling at night. I've been watching the hokey Christmas movies that are marathoning on TV. Some are pretty good; most are pretty dumb. Most have nothing to do with Christmas except that the story happens in December. But most of them make me happy. They are relaxing and keep my mind occupied while I'm transcribing and copying videos. I have jury duty tomorrow so I can't wait for the mailman. Not that I expect him to bring anything. We figured if it didn't come by today, it would be i...

I'm still working on my two major projects that I've mentioned before. Yesterday I managed to transcribe about 4 files of Tom's and copied to DVD 1 1/2 video tapes. It is such a slow process and I'm pretty sure I have already recorded some of the same things. How could they be on 2 different video tapes? I sure don't know! I hope the DVDs turn out worth all the effort and expense. Tom has been working from home mostly for the past many weeks, and whenever he is home, I get less done. He needed help with quite a few things he was working on, so it slowed down my progress, but I don't mind at all. I LOVE having him home all the time! I realized when we were in the middle of our night prayer on Monday night that I forgot to go visiting teaching! I had set up an appointment with my companion and completely forgot.  I feel like an idiot and now I have to call her and set up a new appointment. On Tuesday nights I'm teaching piano lessons to a cute little (15...

First thing on Sunday mornings Tom always fixes his special breakfast for Tanya and family. I get to help by making pancakes and syrup. Once we finish that and get them off to Church, we shower and finish our lessons and get ready to go. We put a roast in the crock pot and finished up our lessons. Our meetings don't start until 1pm but choir is at 12:15, so we have to leave home by 11:30. This gives us a nice long morning to get things ready. Since I had a headache Fri and Sat, I didn't get the finishing touches done on my lesson, so I worked on that after breakfast. The lesson required a bottle of water with a teaspoon of dirt in it. The directions said to let it sit for 10 minutes, then pour out the cloudy water. Then re-fill it and let it sit for 10 minutes and do the same until the water finally is clear after 10 minutes. I did it over and over and was still rinsing every 10 minutes during Sunday School until it finally looked fairly clear before being shaken ag...

Well, the day after the day where everything (almost) went wrong, I had almost everything go right. I didn't work on programming the new computer and I didn't try to print photos, but I did copy about 2 DVDs worth of movies, and did get a fairly big chunk of Tom's files transcribed. That felt great! Winter has visited and we had one day of light rain and weather in the 50s during the day. I love it! The next day, Tanya decided to build more shelves in her garage. She had already done a short wall of shelves that turned out pretty complicated and took 3 days, so she figured that now she was an expert and could knock out the long wall of shelves in one day. So at 9 am on Friday we ran to Lowe's and got almost all the wood and by 10 we were sawing and assembling the shelves. She had worked out all the details of how to do them and what needed done first. She had drawings and lists. I could tell she is an experienced project manager! We worked on them till about 5 pm. T...

Yesterday was a day where I felt like I just couldn't make anything work. First thing in the morning I decided to cut my hair. It's been bugging me for a while, so as soon as I got up, I started whacking. But in the end, it didn't look any better to me. Oh well. I'll keep trying. Tom and I always go on a walk but somehow we took a wrong turn and accidentally cut it short. That's ok, cause I was really walking fast and was worn out when we got back. I have 2 major projects that I'm working on. One is transcribing all of Tom's work files to get them all updated in the computer. It is taking several months and I'll be thrilled if I can finish them before he retires at the beginning of January. The other is transferring all my videos to DVD. It is taking several months. I try to spent at least 3 hours on each of them but I didn't have time to work on either of them yesterday. I'll hit them again today. We bought Tom a new computer - a laptop ...

Today wasn't my favorite Sunday. Nothing was really wrong with it, but I've had better. Some Sundays I have to teach Sunday School and Young Women's and play the organ in Sacrament meeting. Many weeks we also have a baptism after Church where I will also play the piano. It seems like a lot and afterwards I'm pretty tired, but it is also very rewarding. I spend the whole week preparing lessons and practicing. Spending all week preparing lessons is its own reward. It's a little hard to keep the lessons straight, and have them ready in my mind and be prepared for each, but it is really a spiritual high. Today I didn't teach at all. I attended Sacrament meeting, Sunday School, and Young Women's and listened to other people teach and serve. I missed being required to spend the week preparing lessons and seeking inspiration on how to teach them. I listened to other people teach and tried to participate without over-participating. One of the nicer things that...

Today I got to take the sister missionaries from Madera to their new assignment: Porterville - 1 1/2 hours from here. Tom had said last night we could do it together, but this morning he decided he need to go to work, so I picked them up. It was a little tricky finding them because 1. they gave the wrong address where to pick them up, and 2. they gave the wrong name of the apartment complex where they were. They had gone to Fresno and were at another sisters' apartment, so they got the info from the sisters who lived there. Apparently, they don't know where they live. Anyway, Tom and I had traded cars for me to take them and it turned out a really good thing that he couldn't come after all. They had so many suitcases and boxes that the 3 of us barely fit! I've never seen missionaries with so much stuff! We got on the road and after a while, Tom told me that we needed to stop at a couple of places on the way. In Lindsay, there are 3 dimensional murals on some walls...

Every year the McGill family goes to Yosemite for the weekend of Nina’s birthday and they invite Tom and I to join them, so we asked to have Saturday off from serving at the temple in order to go. It is so beautiful there in the fall. The air is cool/cold, the trees are turning brilliant yellows, and there are plenty of deer wandering around. It is beautiful and very relaxing. The McGills are good hikers. They have hiked many of the trails there and I’ve done a few of them with them. I don’t know why I can get so tired sitting or standing around in normal every-day life, but after hiking 5 miles+, uphill and downhill, I feel invigorated and rejuvenated. I think it is the magic of Yosemite, because I don’t feel that good after walking a couple of miles around the neighborhood in Fresno!  I wish I could hike there every day! We left early enough to meet the McGills up there about 10am. We met in a parking lot and took right off to catch a shuttle bus to a hiking trail. ...

I had such fun this past week. My sisters and I decided to get together for a 'sister's reunion'. I flew to Utah on Monday and we were busy almost every minute from not-so-early each morning till pretty-darn-late each night. On Monday night I went with Anne and Acell to their friend's house where they do FHE and have a good gospel discussion. I had planned to keep my big mouth shut, since all of them really know the scriptures and are way beyond me, but I couldn't do it. It was quite inspiring and I wish I could do that with someone here. Hmmm. I wonder why I don't. Sometimes we did little bits of shopping and ran errands. On Tuesday we got pedicures (mine are the blue sparkly toes), Tuesday night I got to with Anne to her Payson Chorale rehearsal. I thought I would go and just sit in the back where I could just relax and listen, but it turned out there wasn't a back... they practice in a choir room at the high school. So I sat next to Anne and...

I've always enjoyed General Conference. I love the opportunity to listen to the words of the Prophet life and straight from his mouth. I remember when I was quite little and was able to attend a Stake Conference where the Prophet, David O McKay came and spoke. I was too little to understand anything he said, or to keep my attention focused, but I remember sitting next to my sisters, and having Anne try to explain to me the wonder of having a living Prophet right in front of us. We were in a bench very near the front and she explained that we should be very reverent and pay particular attention. I remember trying so hard to sit still and just watch him. It was hard, but trying to understand the importance of the situation has impressed me and stuck with me. I remember when General Conference used to be Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We were quite sad when they discontinued the Friday sessions, as they were usually more specifically for the members of the Church instead of being ...

Because my husband works throughout the central California area, he frequently has to travel to cities more than 2 hours away. When I was working, he would either leave me overnight every now and then, or he would drive 2+ hours each way, and work 4+ hours and come home at the end of the day, completely exhausted. That was what he chose to do most of the time so that we could sleep together. But since I retired, and especially during the last couple of months while he is working near the coast, I've been coming with him. During the day while he is working, I either stay in the motel or go shopping/sight-seeing. Then at night we take in a movie or a play. Last night we watched a movie in the room and then went swimming and into the hot tub. It was wonderful! It has been lots of fun and we've done it about 5 times now. One of the things that is fun about this is to see and experience the differences in motels that his company books us in. The first 2 times, we were put in pre...