Thanksgiving 2013 and 70th birthday

It is not every day one turns 70 years of age, but I did and it was a wonderful experience.

Well, I should back up a bit and say that I was very disappointed that David chose not to come home for Thanksgiving and also for Christmas and the New  Year.  All I could see was a gloomy holiday season without our son being home.  My hope was that he would be with us from Christmas to New Year at least with a couple of days for Thanksgiving. He told us that the people he lives with had decided to make Thanksgiving and Christmas a celebration connected with them moving into their brand new home.  At least that is the explanation that David gave.

So with such a gloomy prospect before me, I prepared to just sit at home and have no fun at all.

At this juncture, Roxana, Bill's sister called up and asked if it was still ok for them to come for Thanksgiving?  Of course it was ok.  Life looked a lot brighter in an instant.  She and her husband Gordon live in Seattle and they had their tickets bought for the trip.   A few days later I received a call from Elena, their daughter, telling me that she and her children would be here for the Thanksgiving celebration as well.  We only have a small house, but I thought that with enough floor space, we could accommodate the three of them.

In the meantime, my friend Mary from Maine called me to wish me a happy birthday.  We talked for a long time and it was very heartwarming to hear from her.  She has adopted a new Aussie Heeler to go with her Aussie Shepherd and both of these (herding) dogs, herd the 4 cats that she already has in the house.  She is also a foster parent to the stray kittens from the pound so she has a house full of critters.

Roxana and Gordon were slated to be at our home on Monday Nov 25, but Elena called and said that she was going to pick them up at the airport and take them to see some friends in South Scottsdale .  I thought it was a little strange that Elena should travel from Durango, Colorado, to Phoenix, to pick up her parents to help them not have to pay the shuttle fare up to Prescott.  It was only later that I found out that Elena and her daughter Tania had been in Phoenix for the week.  On the way up to Prescott, they stopped in Cave Creek and the four of them took a hot air balloon ride.  (a few days later a hot air balloon crashed in south Phoenix - I am glad that the family had a safe ride).  They arrived on Tuesday 26 November at about 2.30pm and then the fun began.  Elena told me that Daudi, her ex husband, was flying in to Prescott on Wednesday and would be bringing their son Reuben to stay for Thanksgiving.  Elena and the two children would be staying with a friend out in Williamson Valley, Daudi was to sleep at our home as well as Roxana and Gordon.  It got to be very confusing.  Roxana had a goal of baking the pies for Thanksgiving - 2 pumpkin, 1 Pecan and I made a custard pie.

Roxana is a big football fan so while the Turkey was cooking on Thursday morning, she watched the Greenbay Packers get sent packing by the opposing team.  What a disappointment that was for her.  Daudi left about mid morning to fly back to Durango to be with his mother for Thanksgiving dinner.  So when all the fixin's were finished, all 7 of us sat down to a Thanksgiving meal.

At 8pm on Thanksgiving night, Elena took Roxy and Tania and Reuben up to the mall to shop.  I would liked to have gone but was not invited so I stayed home and cleaned up the kitchen - it really was a mess.

Friday November 29th, Elena and the children left for Durango and Roxy watched more football or did Sudoku.  I sat and sewed more hexagons together, Gordon occupied himself on the computer and Bill was at work. 

Saturday Nov 30 was my 70th birthday celebration.  At 10am I went to Sharlot Hall Museum to pick up my Slot Canyon Quilt.  It has been wandering through a number of venues being shown with other quilts that were part of the 100 Quilts for 100 years celebration for the Arizona Centennial.  The kick off for the Centennial was in Prescott, the weekend we left for Salt Lake to enter the missionary training center in Provo in preparation for our mission in Maine.  For the year 2012 the quilt hung in the art museum in Tucson and we went down to see it hanging there when we got back to Prescott from our mission.  It then hung in the Sharlot Hall Museum here in Prescott for 4 or 5 months then journeyed over to Sedona to hang there till November this year (2013) and now it has come home from its travels and hangs in my home.  So I picked up my quilt and now it has an acid free box to sleep in should I take it down from the wall. 

We went to the bus station and picked up David.  Jim was supposed to put him on the 8.15am bus but he put him on the 7.15am bus so David came home earlier than expected.  He occupied his time talking to Gordon about computers and managed to talk Gordon into giving him the tablet that Gordon had been using for reading books.  Gordon had already given an Acer computer to Tania so that she now has her own computer and does not have to use her mother's computer.

In the early evening we went to Red Lobster where Roxana treated us all to dinner - which was my birthday gift from her and Gordon.  We left there and went to Prescott Fine Arts theater to watch a concert being given there.  It was a real tree hugger concert but rather good just the same.

On Sunday, 1 Dec. we all went to church.  Gordon and Roxy seemed to have enjoyed the services and I heard that David contributed a lot in the classes he attended.  We came home to Turkey leftovers and other stuff.  Gordon had been asking about genealogy and so he and I began a search of the Familysearch.org website and found his family there.  He was delighted and so I continued to work on it finding more people for him while Roxy made grilled cheese etc. sandwiches for everyone.  I did not get to eat because I was busy finding people for Gordon and I printed off all the stuff I found for him.  He  was so impressed with what I had done that he agreed that he would like to have a copy of Roots Magic genealogy program for himself, so I ordered one from Roots Magic to be sent to him for his Christmas Present.  Roxy became enamored with the flat griddle that I have and asked if I could get one sent to her for Christmas.  Found one on Amazon.com  and they delivered it by drone.  She found it early in the morning, two days after I ordered it and we know that it was not from the post man or the UPS man - it was delivered by drone. 

I received a phone call from Uncle Ivan wishing me a happy birthday.  I told him we were going to be in Australia next March and he said we could not stay with him due to Aunty Jean being so ill.  They are in their mid 80's.  Pam also called me.  I asked her if we could stay with her and she was not too happy about that, but said we could stay there.  It will only be for 2 or 3 nights, then we are off to Perth for a holiday for 5 days then come back to the States.

Bill went to work on Monday morning and I put Roxy and Gordon on the shuttle to Phoenix to catch their plane back to Seattle.  David wanted to eat Chinese so we went out for lunch, did the rest of his Christmas Shopping and then I put him on the shuttle back to Phoenix.

All in all we had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday but the best part was a couple of days later when I received an email from a person I knew in Japan - have not heard from or about him for 41 years but I was directed to Find a Grave website by a genealogist friend, where a memorial note was left for his mother who passed recently  and there was an email address there so I wrote to it, and now I have been able to make contact with my friend of a long time ago because his brother left a memorial for their mother.  I had looked all over the California Birth, Death and Marriage website, checked the Social Security Death index to see if he was still alive but no luck.  No wonder, he now lives in Australia, of all places.  No wonder we could not find him.

They have disappeared

I had not heard from Sara or Jacob and family so I called and Oliver answered the phone.  I am always very happy  to talk to Oliver - most of the time he does not talk but runs away when we are on facetime or skype.  This time he started out by saying "I can't find mom or dad or Ethan - they have disappeared.  I ate my dinner and came to watch tv and now I cannot find anyone.  They have all disappeared"  I talked to him for a while and then told him that I was stuck on one level of Angry Birds and needed his help.  I asked if he could come over and fix this problem for me and he said "I am not old enough to drive and my feet cannot reach the pedals."
This morning my phone rang and it was Oliver.  He told me he was trying to call the Baggerley's but he did the speed dial thing and got me instead.  I told him that he was the best and that I love him and his reply was "Well, you told me that every day you were here and you tell me that each time you are on the phone."  I cannot tell my children or grand children too many times that I love them.  When I die, I hope that they remember that I loved them in mortality and forever.  I asked him if he was going to school today and he said yes, he was waiting for his ride to come.  He told me that Ethan had to go to school early because he was playing his 'tromboney'.  Ethan is playing a Trombone in the School music program.  Jacob also played Trombone in his school band.
For the past three months I have not been able to walk very well.  I have had cortisone shots for inflamed muscles/tendons and am starting to feel better.  So well in fact that yesterday I went to Zumba class and stayed the whole course....I am proud of my efforts.
Last night we went to see a one man show entitled "Jerusalem Jones, and the mystery of the Dead Sea Scrolls."  Mr. Ken Hanson, PhD presented the whole story of the Dead Sea Scrolls and it was a wonderful presentation. He is a scholar of Hebrew language and literature, the history of biblical lands and Jewish and early Christian culture.  The whole audience was spellbound as he channeled Indiana Jones as Jerusalem Jones and it was the best performance I have seen in a long time.

colors in the wind

Our maple tree in front of the house is a blaze of color - bright orange to bright red.  Many trees in the Prescott Area are light to deep yellow, very little green left to see and even some trees have dropped their leaves.
It is always remarkable to me how the controversy in Washington (0ver the shutdown this time) just swirled in its own microcosm, and life just went on as usual here.  Oh yes, they had professionally produced placards up the day of the shutdown (wonder if it was a pre arranged activity) that prevented people from going into the park system areas - but public activity at the Grand Canyon forced that attraction to open anyway.
The major activity we have engaged in recently,was when the carpet cleaners came.  Talk about upheaval!  Well we had to clean up the stuff around the house and the end result was that Goodwill and Catholic Charities won big - we just left our stuff off at the drop-off site and drove away.  How freeing is this?  It has spurred me on to go through the house and get rid of all kinds of stuff.  Pretty soon we may just be looking at bare walls and shelves - but I seriously doubt if I can just throw it all to Goodwill.  After all I do like to look at the various things I have made and that are loaded with lots of emotional content.
For one, there is the little Moose given to me by Sue in Maine - he looks so at home on my fireplace.  There is the paper sculptured Swan given to me by the office receptionist in the Archives office - it is beautiful to behold and to just admire.  I do know that one day I shall leave mortality and all this stuff, but at least I hope to have reduced the bulk of it by that time, and in the meantime I shall enjoy having them in my home.
I just found out that my Slot Canyon quilt, that has been touring around the state in celebration of the 100 quilts 100 years for Arizona centennial, will be coming home on November 30.  That will be a very nice birthday gift for me.  I have missed not having the quilt in the house.  It has been gone since September 2011.  If it could talk, I wonder what adventures it has had?  I must add that I was very impressed at the way it was displayed in both the Museum of Art in Tucson and in Sharlot Hall Museum here in Prescott.  I hope that it was appropriately displayed at the other locations.  Someone asked me how I could bare to part with the quilt for so long, but I am heart happy that it has been on display for many people to see it - not just people who come to our house and see it on my wall.
The American Quilt Society is having a BIG quilt show in Phoenix in February and our guild is going to rent a bus to take us all down to it.  I will be meeting my friend Desiree there.  She lives in Bullhead City on the Colorado River.  We have been friends for 14 years - I met her when I came to Prescott in 1999.  She is a marvelous quilter and staunch friend.
On October 26, the Northern Arizona Genealogical Society is holding a Genealogical Conference at the church.  I have been asked to teach a class in Roots Magic genealogy software.  It will have to just be an introductory class because I only have on hour to talk about it.  I have done this class before.  Some weeks ago I gave a presentation to my beading group on Genealogy and as a result two of the ladies will be in attendance at the conference. 
Today I dropped off 8 quilts to the CASA program at the court house.  They are gearing up for the National Adoption Day November 23.  They are expecting close to 70 adoptions to take place this day.  It would have been wonderful when we adopted David and Sara if someone had given the children a quilt to remember the special day in their young lives.  Instead, they handed me a baby in a diaper and that was that.  The sleepers that they were wearing when we went to pick them up were not that expensive, and removed,  but to be handed a baby just wearing a diaper was somewhat of a let down to introduce us to parenthood.  Luckily, I had taken clothes with me to dress the little ones in otherwise they would have had to drive back to Johnstown clad only in a diaper.  So I am glad that I head the compassionate service arm of the Quilt Guild and that I get to take the finished quilts to the various agencies to help alleviate the heartache or give joy to the recipients.  There does not seem to be a middle ground.
I have sent my 3600 hexagon quilt to the quilter to have it quilted for me.  It is king sized and it is beautiful and spectacular.  It is also a mourning quilt - made while I dealt with the emotions that descended upon me when Sara told me of the limited prognosis for Jacob's life with his disease.

Landscapes

This Monsoon Season we had very heavy rains and they lasted a long time.  I thought it might be time to invest in web feet or something.  Now, today, we are back to high desert sunny weather and the landscape needs looking at.
There are many species of plants that have bloomed that have not bloomed for quite a while.  One of them is a fragile looking white flower with hundreds of petals on it.  It has a remarkable purple center surrounded by these little petals.  The whole plant is so spindly that one would think that one puff of wind would lay the whole thing flat but it doesn't - they just wave gracefully in the wind and cheer my heart to see them.  I have no idea what they are called, but who cares?  They are wonderful to see blooming in the fields around here.  these fluffy looking white flowers are less than 1/2 inch across.
In many areas there are carpets of yellow flowers.  These are also spindly plants with these 1/2 inch diameter bright yellow flowers.  There is a house nearby that has a spectacular stand of these yellow flowers.  In one area there is a vast field of them but they will not be there next year because I see the heavy earth equipment grading the soil and digging for roadways etc. so with houses planted there, we can expect to have to live without this glorious yellow sight.
As I was coming along the highway yesterday, I noticed a bright pink haze on the ground.  As I got closer I could see that it was a wild plant that is just pink leaves and they are all over the hills now and look quite showy and pretty.
I have noticed the Indian Paintbrush plant is now in full bloom and that is a sign that winter is coming.  The maple tree in front of our house has changed a lot since the last cold snap we had so I guess soon it will be ablaze with color.
My neighbor has an Agave plant in her front yard and although it is quite small, it has sent up its central frond into the up-most branches of her ornamental Cherry.  Most Agave don't send up the frond until they are quite old and mature.  This plant in her front yard was just a baby sucker from her larger plant that died and we have watched it grow these past 14+ years.  Some people call this plant the Century Plant - once it has sent up its central frond and bloomed, it dies.
I love the wild flowers that have bloomed here in Prescott this year.  On one road we take, there have been many sunflowers.  These are the wild variety and measure about 4inches across.  In the past week I have watched them fade and leave their seed filled centers for the tiny birds to feed from and they flock to these sunflower plants.
The government has shut down and the nearby camping site at Lynx Lake is now off limits to everyone.  I am glad that we went two weeks ago for a breakfast cookout because we would not be able to go there now.  Lynx lake is part of the federal system.
Well, things are going along as usual even though the government has shut down!  Cannot figure out how or why things are still functioning.  Perhaps we do not need the politicians running the country after all!

Getting older

Life is still at a crazy pace but a friend sent the following to me and it made me smile.  Bill is turning 69 tomorrow and we went to Applebees for lunch.  We had the wait staff sing to him and they gave him a free Sundae..............I had to buy mine!  It was one way to assuage our angst over his truck breaking down............eat and forget the troubles.
Of course this is not the best day for his truck to pack it in..............I have an assignment for quilt guild on Monday as well as two appointments that I must keep plus I will probably have to drive him to work and pick him up in the evening........I do not really like afternoon traffic between Prescott and Prescott Valley.  Most people treat it like it is really the Daytona 500 but there are no cheering crowds to fete those who beat it across the line before the light turns red!!!!!




So here goes with the "Aging" musings from my friend.

I was thinking about how a status symbol of today is those cell

phones that everyone has clipped onto their belt or purse.  I

can't afford one.  So, I'm wearing my garage door opener.

I also made a cover for my hearing aid and now I have what

they call blue teeth, I think.

You know, I spent a fortune on deodorant before I realized

that people didn't like me anyway.

I was thinking that women should put pictures of missing

husbands on beer cans!

I was thinking about old age and decided that old age is 'when

you still have something on the ball, but you are just too tired

to bounce it.'

I thought about making a fitness movie for folks my age, and

call it 'Pumping Rust'.

I've gotten that dreaded furniture disease.  That's when your

chest is falling into your drawers!

When people see a cat's litter box, they always say, 'Oh,

have you got a cat?'  Just once I want to say, 'No, it's for

company!'

Employment application blanks always ask who is to be

notified in case of an emergency.  I think you should write,

'A Good Doctor'!

I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a

whole lot more as they get older.  Then, it dawned on me. 

They were cramming for their finals.

As for me, I'm just hoping God grades on the curve.

Gentle Thoughts for Today -

The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight, because by

then your body and your fat have gotten to be really good

friends.

The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to

buy a replacement.

He who hesitates is probably right.

Did you ever notice: The Roman Numerals for forty (40) are XL.

If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in

mind to blame.

The sole purpose of a child's middle name is so he can tell when

he's really in trouble..

Did you ever notice: When you put the 2 words 'The' and 'IRS'

together it spells 'Theirs...'

Aging: Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying

about your age and start bragging about it.

Some people try to turn back their odometers.  Not me, I want

people to know 'why' I look this way.  I've traveled a long way

and some of the roads weren't paved.

When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to your

youth, think of Algebra.

You know you are getting old when everything either dries up

or leaks.

One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that

it is such a nice change from being young.  Ah, being young

is beautiful, but being old is comfortable.

Lord, Keep your arm around my shoulder and your hand over

my mouth...

End of Summer and welcome Autumnal Equinox

I guess time just gets away from me most days but the days are so full that I do not feel like writing at the end of the day.

We have had such overcast dreary days here in Sunny Arizona.  Since I came back from Nebraska,  and with the clouds we have had loads of rain.  Probably well over 6 inches of rain and the rainy season is supposed to be over by now.  If the rain keeps up, the native plants will start to have problems because they are drought centered plants.  Another aspect of all the rain is that the wild flowers have bloomed and filled in all the spaces and it is glorious.

I am glad that we have facetime on our Ipad because it allows us to talk to Sara and family and to see the baby.  He smiles now and is a chubby little guy.  Of course he looks like the other two boys and people will just look at the three of them and say “There goes the Friest Boys”. 

We are both involved with the Family History Center and each Thursday we spend 4 hours in the center helping other folks get their family history done.  Some of them come in with valid questions while once in a while we get a patron who is disappointed that there is no magic button to push to get one’s genealogy to spew out of the system.

Autumnal Equinox:  Well, time has passed again – life is over busy these days.  It is interesting to note that up until today we had very hot days and cooler nights, but the weather seems to know that it is the Autumnal equinox and today is was a day to wear a light jacket.  It is like someone just flipped a switch.

Our Maple tree in the front yard has started to change, and with this crisp air now, it will change drastically.  I love the bright reds and oranges and yellows of its leaves.

I have noticed that there seems to be a whole village of spiders who have taken up residence in our back porch furniture.  They have built their untidy webs everywhere and it matters little whether we break them down  - they just reappear.  These spiders have an unlimited supply of web producing glands to keep up doing what they do.  There are loads of little bundles in their webs – these are the stored food supply for the spiders I suppose, but I observed one of the smaller varieties of birds zoom by and pluck a dainty morsel or two from the webs, leaving an even bigger hole in the untidy mess.

David was up for a visit this weekend and we took him and two friends to a nearby lake where we cooked breakfast.  I love to go to this lake and just sit and watch the water birds come and go.  The lake is pretty full when compared to the holiday weekend at the beginning of the summer when the water level was really far down.  The surface of the water was like glass and someone came by in a canoe and the reflection was classic of the canoe, people and trees that are on the opposite bank.  There were Ducks and Geese and some cormorants moving around the lake.  There used to be a Raptor that nested in the trees on the east side of the lake but I do not know if they are still nesting there.  At another lake nearby there is a Blue Heron that is a resident of the shallow edge.

There is a lady here who orders fruit from some farms in Utah.  I ordered Raspberries that were wonderful and some Tomatoes.  These items are ungraded but they are vine ripened and wonderful – tastier than the ones you buy in the supermarket and quite a bit cheaper.  When we were in Maine, Anne, the lady in the archives office, brought us some special tomatoes that were just as wonderful as these ones in from Utah.  I tried to grow tomatoes this summer but because I was not home to tend the plants, they got leggy and they are not producing very well.  All I want to do is grow Zucchini.  I tried to grow them from seed in the garden and the Quail came in and fed on the new green tender plants.  I re-planted them and either the Quail or some other hungry character came by and ate those too.

 The following year I bought started plants but they got eaten off as well.  So I bought Grow-Boxes and managed to get 3 Zucchini and two yellow squash before I left for Lincoln and when I came home there was nothing left.  I have not been successful as a gardener here in Arizona.  I hope that next Summer I will be able to stay home and tend my garden and get some produce from it.

 David took us to Walmart to see what he could find to spend our money on.  He headed straight for the

electronic section and wanted right or wrong for us to buy him an I-pod touch.  He was at his manipulative best - gave us good reasons why - 1. as an early Christmas Present (12 weeks early) 2. so he could contact us by using Face Tme (he has every electronic device known to man on  his person and is a walking ad for Radio Shack.  He has a cell phone but rarely calls us and never answers our calls to him) 3. It does not cost as much as if  we bought it for him at Best Buy  4. he is tired of using Skype ( we have talked to him no more than 4 times on Skype) 5. It has game aps on it that are excursively Apple products and he wants to play those games.

Number 5 is the winner!

We did not buy the device this weekend and next week does not look good either.

Labor Day Week and Weekend.

Life runs at a feverish pace.  To counter that, we have a bird feeder in the backyard and it is visited by many birds.  I have no idea what their names are but they flutter in and out and provide a distraction from the hustle and bustle of daily life.
This season that we are in  is called the Monsoon Season - primarily because rains come up from the gulf of Mexico and travel up the state of Arizona dropping rain on the desert and causing it to blossom.  The wild sunflowers are spectacular this year and every plant that has ever scattered seeds to the wind has had those seeds germinate and the hills are now quite green.  Of course this has caused flash floods here and there and made life miserable but it is rain and rain is what keeps our plants and animals alive and the creeks run and the lakes fill up.  Unfortunately, a homeless woman drowned in a swollen creek in the center of town.  The report in the paper was rather vague but it is a sad situation that she got washed down stream and drowned.  They reported that she was either bathing or playing in the water and a storm upstream sent a surge down the creek and washed her away. 
Saturday morning I went out for the paper and was struck by the silence of the area.....that is except for the birds welcoming the rising sun.  The air was still and the native cedars were giving off their beautiful clean scent into the air and the moment was magical to me.
The weekend is a three day weekend celebrating Labor Day and signalling the official end of Summer.  All the water parks etc. close down after this weekend to re-open in the Memorial Day weekend at the end of May, next year.The town square is host to a huge craft show this weekend.  We went to it and wandered up and down the alleys.  There seems to be a preponderance of Bead and jewelry booths and a smattering of oil paint and acrylic paint artists and a musician by the name of Patrick Ki plays his music for all to hear.  I stopped by a quilt booth.  The work seemed to be all one person's work and not imported from China as in other years.  The one thing that came across to me from the show was the amount of work these people had put into their wares and the amount of money they have invested in supplies.  With the monsoon showering us almost daily, the crowds do not attend because this is an outdoor show and people do not want to get wet.  The crafters do not do well under these conditions.  There were lots of dog owners out with their pets and as far as I was able to observe there were no altercations between animals - in other years there have been some really good dog fights erupt on the grounds.  Owners trying vainly to calm their pets while the pets just wanted to settle once and for all who was kingpin in the dog world of the courthouse plaza in Prescott, Az.  The biggest dog on the plaza was a Newfoundland.  It looked like a tiny horse.
On Monday this week, we had our monthly gathering of quilters for the Community Quilts effort.  I was surprised to see 30 ladies come out and work.  They pay $3 for Pizza and it is delivered to the facility and we all eat lunch together.  I cannot bring myself to eat the pizza - it does not look good to me.  We have someone bring the breakfast treat, and two people bring salads and about 4 people bring desserts.  This week someone brought individual cheese cakes...........Oooooh! Yummy!
We have loads of fabrics in totes that we open up and the ladies are free to pick whatever they feel they would like to have to work with and they create some wonderful quilts.   Most of the quilts go to the CASA program for the adoptions and we are gearing up for National Adoption Day, November 23.  The CASA adoption day is very festive and the children to be adopted are overjoyed for the chance to become permanent in someone's family.....most of them come from the foster family program.
Friday morning, while Bill was at Computer class at the College, I went to the Bead Show up at the Yavapai Resort.  The man who runs it comes up from Tucson and apparently he does well enough to keep coming back.  We have a new beader in our group named Pam, whom I met at a craft show down on the square a few weeks ago.  I told her about the bead show and she said she would go to it.  I was very happy to see her there and we ogled the beads he had on sale - we also bought some.
Today we talked to Sara and family over the Facetime on the phone.  Ethan told us that he and his Fifth grade class went to see the Salt Dogs play baseball.  It was a good game but filled with lots of problems - a number of students had to be treated for heat exhaustion, one student got hit by a stray ball and Ethan's gymnastic friend was hit in the head by a flying bat.  Do not know how that happened but he got three stitches and will not be doing gymnastics for a few weeks.  He was out of gymnastics for a while this past summer for an injury at baseball - a pitcher sent a wild pitch that hit him in the knee and put him out of commission.
Oliver does soccer at school.  He used to do soccer with a club but with Sara and Jacob both working, it is hard to get the kids to practices etc. so Oliver does soccer at school.   He has lost the two front teeth on the bottom.  When I was out there, I noticed that his new teeth were coming in behind the front teeth so the dentist encouraged Oliver to loosen and then pull out the two baby teeth.
Lyla showed us all the toys that the girls across the street gave her. She is delighted.  These three girls decided to give their toys to Lyla because they consider themselves grown up now and these are for little kids.  Lyla thinks it is better than Christmas.
While we were on the Facetime, baby August woke up and we got to see him.  He is a chubby little guy and he is rather long already.  I guess he will be the tall one in the family.
In sharing time at church today, with the little kids, they had stories about Jesus.  One picture showed how Jesus washed the feet of the disciples.  The thought crossed my mind - What were these men thinking as Jesus was washing their feet?  They had been with him for a couple of years by now and had seen many miracles performed.  This washing of the feet was a first for them and did they really understand what the significance of the ordinance was to them?  They were mere mortals and Christ is half mortal half immortal and it was not until after the Holy Ghost was sent to them later on that they became a force to be reckoned with.  It was a mind boggling thought to be sure but I did not have time to explore it because it was time to take my little brood to class.  Our class time this week was a lesson on how Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers, no matter the language used.  I had six children in my class - 2 regular participants and 4 visitors.  On the holidays one never knows what  or how many class members will be in attendance.