Scorching the World

2/27                  Our goal was to get to Marc and Alissa’s in time to see the baby before they needed to go to bed, so we wanted to leave Fresno before 2pm at the latest. Tom made a wonderful breakfast of fried sweet potatoes. We didn’t know the fried spuds would be so good using sweet potatoes, but they were even more delicious! Then we took off for Madera. We needed to clean out the garage. There is stuff to go to recycling, stuff for the dump, stuff to donate, and the rest has to be organized to put into storage since Berkshire will surely close before we get a house to move into. The hardest thing to move will be the pool table. I don’t know how we will do that! Tanya and Caeli went with us and were happy to take stuff we didn’t need to keep or store that they liked. It also helps a lot to have Tanya there because she is more objective and better able to say, “You really don’t need to keep t...

Friday, 2/26/16            Tom woke me up at 2am and said he was going with Tanya to take Cai to the airport in Oakland. That way he and Tanya could take turns sleeping. After he told me I went right back to sleep; no problem! Todd and I got the kids off to school, and Tanya and Tom were back home from Oakland by shortly after that, so all four of us went to Madera to meet our realtor to see some properties. We looked at 4 different houses and all disagreed on which was the better house. Todd took notes on each one, asking each of us to rate each on a scale of 1 – 10. He listed all the pros and cons of each so we could remember and not make an emotional decision. By the time we finished, we were all hungry for breakfast, so we let the realtor go home and we went to IHOP to eat and talk. We finally decided that what we really wanted was the house in Rolling Hills, Madera that we saw last week but can’t afford. We talked and t...

2/25      Thursday morning we left for Fresno. Tom had a few work emergencies to take care of first, then we left.  On the way to Fresno we Marc sent a text that said, "Finally." That was his way of telling us that Alissa had her baby! So, understanding what he meant, I texted back a request for pictures and he sent this: OHHHH SOOOO CUUUUUUTE! He weighed 7lb 14 oz and is 19 1/2" long. So cute! We can't wait to see him! We stopped in Madera on the way to Tanya's to look at the outsides of a few houses, and got there about 5:30, just in time to go with them to the Blue and Gold Dinner for the cub scouts. It was fun, but I had a pretty nasty headache most of the day and just really wanted to go lie down, so we left before it ended. It was cute and fun, though. Cai was leaving to go back to Idaho very early in the morning tomorrow, so we all kissed her good-bye. Sadness, but it was sure fun to have her here! Of course Tanya loved it the mo...

2/22-2/24         I spent most of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday entering notes in a music program so that I could put them on my choir website for our choir in our new ward. I don’t know if anybody needs it for rehearsal purposes, but I wanted to make it an option. It’s probably silly to spend so much time doing something that nobody might want or need, but that’s me. I just do it anyway. I got all the music entered, one note at a time, but I couldn’t get it to upload to be able to work on my website. I struggled with that portion of it most of the week. I really wanted to have it done before going to Fresno on Thursday, but I just couldn’t get it to work. I went over the instructions over and over, but it just wouldn’t work. On Wednesday I got to go to Lunch with the Ladies. It’s so fun to meet with the ladies from my old ward. We just talk and laugh a lot. It’s so nice to have friends! Back at home I quickly created a basi...

2/21/16             On Friday we went to pick up Cai from the Oakland airport. She had taken a bus from Idaho to Provo, then caught a plane to CA, so she had been up since about 3am To wait out the commute hour traffic, Cai and Tom went to visit Todd in the hospital. He was really happy to have visitors, especially to have Cai there! ! It was so fun to get Cai all to ourselves while we drove to Fresno. I was surprised she didn’t take a nap on the way! We got there about 11pm and went right to bed. Saturday morning Tanya had arranged for the whole family to go swimming at the gym she belongs to. It was the rare chance for Cai to teach Caeli, who has started team swimming, from her vast experience in water polo. Tom and I stayed home and prepared breakfast for when they got back. After they were fed and dressed we went to look at some houses. Some of them sounded really good so we were quite disappointed to find...