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.
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