Month of December 2015

Started off the month with our Brentwood Ward Christmas party. Good meal, entertainment by the primary portraying the Christmas story. 

At the local Festival of Trees in November we ran into a high school friend of Rich’s. He and his wife invited us up to Plano to their home for a get together with some of their friends. One of which had served in the Kenya Nairobi Mission in the mission home. We had a great evening with them.

On the 14th we attended the Nutcracker ballet put on by the Idaho Ballet Theatre.

Several doctor appointments. Sandra had a stress test at her new doctor’s office and she passed with flying colors.

We held a neighborhood party and enjoyed visiting with many of our neighbors that we haven’t seen for some time.

The highlight of the month was our family party on Christmas Eve.

On Christmas Day we took breakfast around to all our kids to see what everyone got for Christmas. That was really fun.

Then on the 26th we went to SLC to see Lee & Nancy. They just returned from their mission to Guatemala.  They reported in church on Sunday. They had a family get together afterwards and we enjoyed visiting with all their family. Can you believe that Rich did not take any photos?

Our New Years party with the dinner club was a flop. Everyone was either gone south for the winter, sick or in the hospital. We just sat home and did nothing. Didn’t even wait up for midnight. Pretty sad.

Month of November 2015

Well, we didn’t get any traveling done this month. Too many irons in the fire.

Started off with doing a fireside for the High Priests of our ward. We pretty much did the same thing as we did for our “Empty Nesters” group. Showed our mission farewell video and talked about some of the experiences we had in the temple and around the WDC area.

Rich’s cataract surgery was scheduled for Oct. 27th but his INR was too high and they put it off for a week. So he had his right eye done on the 3rd of Nov. and the left done on the 10th. What an experience!

He says he can see so much better now. It used to be that he would say, “What does that road sign say”.  And now it’s, “Can you read that sign?, well I can.”

We did indeed tear out the front room wall.

This is before:

This is after:

The flooring:

Sandra found an area rug online for half price and ordered it. She really loves that room now.

The Idaho Falls Youth Arts Center presented a play of Peter Pan this year so we got tickets and took Taylor our grandson and Janna our daughter to see it. We were really impressed with all the acting, singing and flying around. For a small town local production they did a great job on the aerial stuff.

We got our flu shots and Sandra finally got into a doctor. He put her through a stress test. She was really uptight about that but passed with flying colors.

On the 21st our grandson Tyson was baptized. He (and we) have been working with the missionaries for the past couple of months. It was a very happy occasion for us.

We had stake conference this month and the visiting authority was Elder Sexton of the 70. It was very inspiring. He talked a lot about hanging on ’till the end through times of trial and stress.

Then on Sunday we had our family Thanksgiving feast. Thanksgiving day was not going to work out for us as we have too many in-laws and out-laws now and everyone was either traveling to other places or had to work. We had a good time on Sunday and then for the next couple of days the girls quilted like crazy. They did 2 for Jacki and 3 for Janna. 

On Tuesday we had another get together.

For Thanksgiving we just sat around and did nothing. (Actually Rich is trying to master the new iMovie app so he spent all day every day on the computer. And Sandra was going nuts with cabin fever.) We didn’t even leave the house for 3 days.

So after all our plans to travel, we didn't do any. We probably won’t now until after Christmas.

Month of October 2015

We look at our calendar for the month and wonder what we filled our time with. What a boring month.

Looks like all we did was go to doctors. The eye doctor told Rich he needed cataract surgery so we scheduled that for later in the month.

We enjoyed General Conference.

And we attended several funerals. All our friends and associates are dying off.

We did a bunch of odd jobs around the house. We moved the book cases from the office (front room) back into the family room.

Sandra has been working on the castle and came up with a plan for the draw bridge. She purchased a winch and we installed that. Works really well. Just hope the kids don’t get a finger caught in the mechanism.

Our next big project is to tear out the wall in the front room.

Sandra’s roses are still looking really good for this late in the season. Here’s the one that was given to us at Shawn’s funeral.

One day we went out to drop off some photos to the Prices (Kenda’s Mom & Dad - Shawn’s ex wife) and decided to stop by and see Shawn’s grave. Still having a hard time with his passing.

Had an interesting “Empty Nester’s” home evening this month. We talked about the different angel Moronis on various temples.

Rich had to put off his cataract surgery for a week due to thin blood. We’ll report on that next month.

We had our friends the Hagedorns over for dinner. They have a mission call to serve in the Johannesburg Temple in South Africa.

Then we closed out the month with Halloween. 

We took our grandson Tyson to the church and let him hand our candy at the Trunk-or-Treat while we sat in the nice warm car.

Maybe life will slow down next month and we can do some traveling.

Month of September 2015

We have had a few of you asked to see the farewell movie we made when we left WDC.
Here is the link:

We still feel like we are in a whirlwind. Trying to remember where everything is in our house. Sandra says she is trying to get re-acquainted with her kitchen.

You may recall the situation with Shane’s truck from last month. It finally did get fixed and we drove it to Reno. Not a bad ride for a large diesel dual wheel rear end truck. While our car was in Reno our grandson used it to get to school one day and had a flat tire. We knew the tires were needing to be replaced as soon as we got home from WDC. But that didn’t happen. So we decided to get new tires in Reno. Then with the other things they found wrong we ended up with a $1,000 bill. But we had a great time in Reno.

One of the highlights was the Dog Wash:

We got to see where Kiegan works.

Look what Jacki has done with Sandra’s Kitchen she made for the grandkids:

Had great visits with Jacki. And Sandra helped her with her levi quilt.

Then on Sat. we headed home. Drove hard but still only made it to Wells NV.

Up the next day early so we could make it to church with Dee & Cynthia Jensen our friends from the WDC Mission.

We spent most of the day with them. They served us a great meal of barbecue ribs and sent us away with a whole load of corn.

On the way we stopped to see Verba & Seth. Verba is my mother's youngest sister.

The next week was pretty normal. Still not totally settled into our house. But we did get our TB shots that we are always supposed to get after a mission.

Sept. 14th we headed down to SLC for the mission reunion for the 2012-2014 missionaries. Stayed at our bed & breakfast place there. (Hal & Debbie’s)

The next morning we went to the SLC Temple with all the missionaries from our mission. They had a hard time keeping us reverent in the assembly room and in the celestial room. But it was a great experience. We went to the Chuck-A-Rama for lunch then back to a church near the temple to have a meeting. Where Richard presented a video about the Washington DC Mission which Pres. Swinton had asked him to make.
Here's a link to that movie if any of you are interested in seeing it.

After the meeting we went to Bruce and Jean Harper’s home for pizza and salad. And to visit, with them, Richard & Vera Merrell and Ann & David Moyle. It was a wonderful visit.

The next day there was supposed be a get to gather up at Pres. Pratt’s lodge in Alta but the weather was so bad they changed it to a church in Centerville. We had lunch and then Pres. & Sister Swinton spoke. They are such spiritual giants. It was great to have time to talk with everyone.

We had made plans to go on down to St. George to the Tuacahn Amphitheatre to see a show with David & Ann Moyle. So we went to their home for breakfast then headed south.

We enjoyed the show that night

and the next morning we parted. We headed on down to Yuma and Moyles headed home. 

We both needed dental exams and cleaning and we decided to do that in Los Algodones Mexico. Saved us a lot of money. We did that on Sat. morning and shopped around a bit, stayed over in Yuma that night, went to church the next morning and headed north.

We made it to St. George that evening and stayed with Jeff & Lola. Jeff’s sister and husband who had just returned from a mission in Argentina were there and we had a great time visiting with them.

Next morning we headed for home. We had planned to stop on the way and see several of the missionaries we served with in WDC but decided to forgo that and get home in time to meet with Derek our grandson who was home on leave from the Navy.

On the 27th we spoke in Sacrament Meeting and had a get together with family and friends at our home. I guess Rich is getting old and lazy. We didn't get photos of a lot of events during this month.

On Monday we had an “Empty Nester’s” home evening at our house where we talked about our mission.

Next month we see a pretty open calendar. Maybe we can settle down and get a few things done around our house and yard.

Month of August 2015

August was an interesting month for us. The first week was pretty much our normal temple service.

We were released from our mission on August 8th after the end of our shift at the Temple. Sunday was different as we had both been released from our church callings. So we spent part of the day packing up to make the long journey home. We planned several stops along the way. The Moyles planned to travel with us as far as Nauvoo.

Monday we were packing things into the car and got a call from our ex daughter-in-law. She informed us that our son (her previous husband) had committed suicide. That put us both into severe shock. We finished packing and left Tuesday morning for Columbus, Ohio.

There in Columbus we attended the Temple. A very interesting experience to go through a session with such a load on our minds.

Next day we traveled to Champaign, Illinois with a stop in Indianapolis to see the Temple there. Not open yet and the open house was over. But we were able to twist the arm of the building construction supervisor to let us in to walk around the grounds.

Then from Champaign we wanted to drop down to Springfield, Illinois and visit the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, the Lincoln Home National Historic Site and the Lincoln Tomb.

We stayed 2 days in Nauvoo. Tried to cover all the spots there but didn’t really make it. 

We did get to see our friends the Halls who we served with in Africa. Bro. Hall was even able to switch wagons and take us on the wagon ride.

From Nauvoo we decided to drop down and visit Adam-Ondi-Aham. Had a little trouble finding it but eventually we did.

We had planned to spend several days with Kyle & Donna in Omaha but because of the situation at home and needing to make a lot of arraignments for the viewing and funeral we cut our visit short. We went to a ward early there in Omaha and headed for home. We made it to Cheyenne that night.

On Monday we traveled the rest of the way home.

The next few days are just a blur. 

Here’s a link to our son’s obituary:

We were released Tues. evening just before the viewing. 

Then had the funeral on Wed. 

Friday Jared our grandson, (Scott’s son) flew into Idaho Falls returning from his mission to the Philippines. So we met him at the airport.

Then on Sat. we all (Sandra, Rich, Scott, Alison, Jenna, Seth, Jared and Jordan) went to the Temple in Rexburg. Jordan will leave for his mission on Sept. 2nd.

That afternoon we went up to Green Canyon Hot Springs. We had a great time there.

On Sunday Jordan gave his farewell talk and Jared reported his mission. So we went to church with them and attended the big celebration at their home.

After the funeral our daughter Jacki had car trouble and Shane, (Jacki’s guy) had to take his truck in for repair. Jacki needed to get back to Reno to work, so she took her suburban (which Kiegan, Jamie & Aria) had come in. That left Kiegan, Jamie & Aria without a vehicle. They stayed with us because of the forest fires in the Red Fish Lake area (where they had planned to camp at). They used our truck (which had a bad battery) to get around in for that week. Then they needed to get home to Virginia City (up above Reno) to go to work. Shane’s truck did not get fixed in time so we sent them home in our car with the idea that we would drive Shane’s truck to Reno when it got fixed.

We reported to the High Council on Tues. night and headed for Reno on Wed.

That puts us into Sept. and that’s a whole new story. Watch for more next month.