August 25, 2008

Dear Children,

A few of big news items are from this week. First, Nate received word from the managers at Zappos.Com that they liked his work this summer so much that they want to hire him when he graduates in December! That is really great news as they are a very good company for which to work. Nate hasn’t promised anything to them as yet.

Next, the boys are in Aaron’s home as of this week. They worked hard to get it all ready and Morty sent me a picture of their new kitchen counters. They look beautiful. I am anxious to see it in person. Dad and I are going there in October on the 5^th or the 6^th before we travel on October 10 to go to BYU Homecoming.

Lastly, after a year and a half of searching and researching and much deliberation, I bought a car to replace the Taurus and just in time to drive to Utah! It will be a more comfortable ride. It is a beautiful car, a Honda Accord. So now we are not Ford outcasts in the family anymore. Every time Aaron came into town, he would get us to go car shopping. We started at Toyota last, last February and he would ask the sale person the most detailed questions! I think he would have liked the last two car salesmen we had; they seemed to have lots of knowledge. I was ready to buy the Toyota Camry until I sat in the Honda one last time. I just liked it better in the end and it had a few features (more leg room in the back, more safety features, wider back seat for three car seats, and available in a color I liked!) that I liked but especially it senses automatically and shuts off the air bag when you have a child in the front passenger seat (which is the case when I travel with four of them). I wanted to buy from Beaverton Honda because I liked the salesperson and they are so close but they wouldn’t come down in price enough. I went to internet sales but the Costco program beat it out sending us to Hillsboro Honda which is owned by Larry Miller so I guess we kept the money in the family since his wife is related to Grandma Bitter!!! Anyway, besides loving the car, I am relieved that all the decision making is over. We got such a great interest rate that the money that I had been saving to buy the car will stay making more interest as I make the payments (even though I hate to have car payments). This car has XM radio for the next three months without charge. That might be handy while going through Idaho on our trip. Do any of you have any tips of how to use it to take full advantage?

Speaking of interest, we had a great meeting at the singles ward on Sunday. We had a combined priesthood and Relief Society meeting. Bishop Pierson said he chose the topic due to some concerns that he was having with the economy and how vulnerable the age group was to the problems that would result from a down turn. It was about managing money better and he asked Beth Butterworth to give a lesson on finances and expenses. She did a fabulous job; he was smart to have her do it even though that is his expertise also. She could relate so much better to real life situations of her peers. I really like her; she is one of Aaron’s old friends from the ward’s beginnings. She had some great ideas on living more providently and got some great ideas and responses from everyone else. She talked of the concept of “stepping down” (I think that is what she called it). She suggested, after you track your expenses and see you are spending a surprising amount on one area, it is a way of curbing your expenses in that area. She used the example, instead of going to Panda Express four times a week, she suggested a goal would be to go twice or three times. She then calculated the savings and showed what would be gained in a year’s times of making that small improvement. She was very believable and her main focus, besides creating a better spending plan (instead of calling it a budget), was to be reasonable in your goals so you could be successful and continue saving in even more areas and building up what you are saving. She taught the concept of S.M.A.R.T. teaching that our financial goals needed to be:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic

Time Bound

One funny thing she did was use herself as an example of weekly savings and what a huge amount she could save in a year by making one change. Beth loves bread and likes to buy the expensive kind so she learned how to make bread. I can’t remember whether she said she makes it once a month or once a week but she gave both examples and showed the money saved. BUT, in a singles ward, I think she was VERY smart to use that as an example and broadcast the idea that she was a regular bread baker if you know what I mean!!! Like I said, I really like her; she is smart!

Adrianne is trying her hand at baking bread. She would like to learn how to cook some artisan bread type. She has been sleeping at the barn again while Mrs. Gueck is in Tennessee so she takes things there to do. Actually, I think she is relieved that her barn sitting job came to a close yesterday. Mrs. Gueck’s dogs were starting to wear on Adrianne’s patience especially the day they caught a squirrel and dragged it through the doggy door. Adrianne came home to find squirrel body parts and blood all over the kitchen!

This week has been one of saying goodbye to summer and preparing for fall as we finish all the loose ends to get Adrianne back to school. Because her schedule was so full while she worked at the gift shop full time and the internship, we have crowded all her appointments these last two weeks. The weather has also turned colder but I suspect, knowing Oregon weather, we will get some warm fall weather. We enjoyed such a long space of hot summer weather. My garden finally has taken off and we have enjoyed tons of cucumbers with many tomatoes and peppers to follow. The two days after Adam left, was spent pulling weeds all day since I had neglected gardening while we were on “vacation” while Adam was here and other family members came to visit. It is looking good for now.

Grandma Payne visited Oregon this past week. We took Adam to see her at Uncle Wid’s; it was great to see Holly and Tanner also. We again met Wid and Jill and their family (Melissa’s also) at the Thai restaurant that Grandma Payne took us to last year (June 2007). That is a great tradition; their food is always SO good! They came over to the house last night and enjoyed some of Howard homemade bread. Grandma Payne goes home to Utah today. Luckily, she was able to travel down to Albany to see Kyre. She enjoyed that. Grandma Payne also was cleared at the last minute to see Scott. The two of them had a great visit; it was so good for both of them.

Dad, Adrianne and I enjoyed a visit to the Street of Dreams this year. I took some pictures of a few of the ideas. I fell in love with one of the kitchens with a beautiful ceramic back splash behind the stove, surrounded by a gorgeous colored granite counter top. That is next on my list so I need to utilize some of Beth’s methods to start a more accelerated savings plan in my home improvement account. We ran into Karen and Kari Morgan and two of their girls. Sister Morgan wondered how many single young men we had left in the family since she has three single girls. Nate, you should look up Nishelle Morgan, your old Joy School friend (was that her name?)! She wasn’t with them or I would have checked her out for you.

At the last minute, Grandma Maldonado’s condo group decided to have a garage sale this weekend. We all pitched in to give her some help. Adrianne helped her clean out and organize her office closet and I helped with her bedroom closet. Had we had more time, we probably could have cleaned out a good portion of our attic. Dad and I were up there this week to get some things for her garage sale and we determined that we would save a couple of rainy days in November for that project. Dad and I need to organize it up there again and do some very serious throwing out. The main thing we sold at Grandma’s sale was the red canopy. It was SO heavy that Dad had lost his patience with using it and returning it to the attic each time. I sold it after we had put away everything else and Dad was gone taking the first load to the Deseret Industries truck (we didn’t have the van this weekend since it was at the Hood to Coast with Uncle Dave). I was folding it up when a man drove by and asked if we had anything left. The only thing I felt sad about selling was the canoe seats that probably belonged to Aaron and Shawn from their scout high adventure Bowren Lake trips. Luckily, the seats stayed with friends though. Christine Brown came by and saw them and was all excited because Jason just bought a canoe (he lives in Alaska). She said he would be excited to hear that the seats had been on the Bowren Lake trips! I was just ready to pull the seats back into my pile of things going back home when she came by and bought them! Oh well; they haven’t been touched for over 10 years. Maybe this will inspire some of you to come home and organize your things so we know what things up there are really important to you also. When Adrianne heard the canoe seats were sold she said, “Someday I want to go to Bowren Lakes.” I told her if she got her siblings together that wanted to do it later in her life, I would watch the young children.

Dad, Adrianne and I squeezed in going to Phantom of the Opera this week also. We had nosebleed seats but it was still so good. The music has been going through my head ever since. I bought the cheapest seats but when it was row K, I thought that was early enough in the alphabet that they wouldn’t be the worse seats. Well, row K IS the last row of the third balcony. When we found our seats and sat down Dad said, “These are going to be great seats!”

The idea to keep Adam an extra day so that I might also be able to visit Scott on the way back from delivering Adam to Jefferson came to me on Sunday morning. I was able to arrange it with Aunt Lynn so I took Adam home in the morning and visited with Scott in the afternoon. He had been on a phone connection to Kyre’s hearing the previous Friday so it was good to hear Scott’s point of view of the court proceedings. He was pleased with a couple of the results of the hearing for Kyre’s sake. It sounds as if Scott also has a good attorney to think about the best things to advocate for Scott and yet, protect him from any more damage to his chances for later legal opportunities. As I left Scott confided in me of the awful experience he had the night before where he witnessed an attempted stabbing just ten feet away from him. Later he learned that it was staged but it is just a solemn reminder of the environment in which Scott can find himself. We both felt that the Lord was watching over him and prepared a way for him to have outside family contact so quickly after that scary event. That has happened before where we felt strongly to make a last minute visit and it has been a time when Scott has had a similar experience. Scott pointed out that he had seen the picture of Larry and Jennifer Miner in the August 9 Church News. Did any of you notice it also?

Here is a great quote from President Monson from a priesthood session of general conference back in 1986. “Oftimes the wisdom of God appears as foolishness to men, but the greatest single lesson we can learn in mortality is that, when God speaks and a man obeys, the man will always be right.”

I love you! Have a great week ahead! Love, Mom