September 7, 2008

Dear Children,

We packed in lots of fun this weekend with a visit from Morty and Nate. The day before Morty arrived he called and suggested that we add a day to our Seattle (BYU football against University of Washington) trip on Saturday and also go to the Mariner game the night before. It turned out to be a great idea.

Morty arrived Thursday and Nate on Friday. Thursday we conveniently stopped at IKEA on the way home from the airport. Morty wanted to get a look at some things at which he and Aaron had been looking online; I cannot believe that Las Vegas does not have their own IKEA! I rarely go there so that gave me a chance to get an up close look at their kitchen cabinets. I had read an article about remodeling a kitchen without the high cost and it was suggested to buy cabinets through IKEA. They are pretty nice looking.

I made my first batch of salsa for Morty’s arrival. It was pretty good if I do say so myself. Once again, though, our garden jalapeños are not very spicy. I haven’t figured out that problem yet. I also picked our first batch of green beans for Sunday’s dinner; I am so relieved that the third planting actually worked. I thought it would be too late in the season. We visited up at Grandma’s on Thursday night once we came back to Beaverton and planned the rest of the weekend.

Nate took the MAX once he arrived on the plane on Friday morning; that allowed time for Morty and I to stop by Triple A and get all new road maps for the new Accord. I just might to take some road trips with my comfortable new car especially since we were excited to get 32 miles per gallon on our trip back from Utah! We immediately went to the DMV since Nate’s license had expired while he was in Las Vegas. I thought it would take forever with all their new restrictions but it was amazingly fast; fast enough that we called Grandma so we could pick her up and take her to the Black Bear Restaurant for breakfast. That is the restaurant that we liked to stop at in Yreka on our trips to California. They now have one in Beaverton; they have huge meals so luckily Grandma and I shared one. The boys ordered the largest meals of course!

We headed for Seattle in the early afternoon. It was a beautiful night for a ballgame. Nate’s friend, Mike Corrigan, was also in Seattle for the BYU game so he met up with us at the Mariner game. They were playing the Yankees so it was very nice that they won. What made it even better was that it was the pitcher’s first major league game and he pitched a no hitter until the seventh inning!

We stayed in Tukwila, by the SeaTac airport, since there were no decent prices in the city. I would have loved to stay in the city; I think that Seattle is a fascinating town. We stopped with the traffic on a freeway exit overpass so Morty could get a picture of the Seattle skyline; it was so pretty. Dad was good at heading south to our place quickly and getting away from the traffic at both the Mariner and BYU game. Seattle can be a traffic nightmare and we had heard that the Husky game causes the worst bottle ups. We arrived two hours early for the football game and already the parking lot that the BYU alumni suggested we use, was full of Husky tailgaters. That caused us to drive quite a way away to park and that saved us after the game. They stack the parking in the school lots so you just sit in your parking spot until everyone in front of you returns.

The Husky stadium is quite large so it was a very noisy game. We went to the BYU tailgate party by the baseball field and then into the stadium early. Our general admission tickets allowed any seating in the end zone so Nate and Morty chose to sit on the front row with Mike and his friend. They had gone to Wal-Mart the night before, five minutes before closing, and bought all the blue crepe paper streamers they could. At the first touchdown they threw the streamers to celebrate, reserving just a few for the end of the game. Dad and I sat about six rows up with what we considered pretty great seats.

We thought by BYU’s touchdown in the first few minutes that it would be a BYU blowout but the Huskies kept coming back and matching our score after every touchdown. It was a good game though and I hope BYU has made all of their mistakes for the rest of the season! The Huskies have a very excellent quarterback and with only two seconds left in the ballgame, he ran the ball in for a touchdown. We knew, with his running ability that they would probably go for the win with a two point conversion but he was called for excessive celebrating when he threw the ball high in to the air in the end zone so the penalty pushed the Huskies back far enough that they needed to kick it instead for only one point to tie. Amazingly, BYU blocked the kick and won the game. It was a great ending; it is always nice to win!

We drove home as quickly as we could so we could pick up Grandma and go to Mongolian Grill for a celebration dinner for Nate’s job offer with Zappos. This picture was from Morty iPhone so it may not come through so well. On the trip he also received news that he was offered a part time job for the fall with Orangesoda.com in American Fork doing about the same thing he did at Zappos. In his interview he asked for $15.00 per hour and they explained that only their fulltime employees receive 12-15 dollars an hour. They must have really liked him as they gave him an offer for $13.00; he has become a “pay per click” specialist. I hope I wrote that correctly; when Nate says his job title, it sounds like “paper clip” specialist! He will work in American Fork everyday until noon and has adjusted all of his classes to fit that new schedule; his last semester will be as loaded as all the rest.

With Nate’s knowledge about optimizing search engines to get a website noticed, he talked a lot about getting Bitter Concrete on the internet. It sounds like a lot of work to get started but something worth trying. Dad and I never realized the science behind getting your website noticed. Nate left us with some homework to start a blog developed around answers to many of the questions asked on the Yahoo Answers website. This should be interesting but it needs to wait until next week. Our projects this week are organizing our storage room by cleaning out the REALLY old food storage, getting rid of those old brown shelves and setting up our new rolling shelves plus, for the concrete business, developing a new format for our invoices since Dad is almost out and we need to add some more information due to the fact that much of our business these days are not contractors anymore. We need the family experts here in Beaverton to help us with these projects!

Morty had to leave early Sunday morning. The Las Vegas Gift Show starts this week and his boss is in town to get things set up. Also, Morty needed to help Joe with some projects before the show. We went to Beaverton First ward and many people enjoyed talking with Nate. After church Nate called Grandma and said he was ready to play games. We had his favorite request for dinner, hash, and then he offered to set up a Face Book page for Grandma before playing games! She is one lucky grandma especially since Nate noticed some pretty cute girls in our singles ward and could have stayed longer for the rest of the singles ward mingling time! Anyway, with Nate’s early Monday morning departure, Dad and I are pretty sad to look ahead to a regular work week after such an entertaining weekend with the boys! But, this next weekend we are actually going to the beach with Carol and Davis Stanger. They have agreed to subject themselves to the 90 minute harassing of the Seaside marketing group in trade for two nights vacationing there!

Katie also had an entertaining week as she closed her cross country ride this week through so many exciting places. The night that they attended the Boston Red Sox game they couldn’t find parking by their friend’s downtown apartment so they decided that it was so late, and they wanted to head to Palmyra so early in the morning, that they just drove through the night. Katie called saying how beautiful it was in the Sacred Grove as it was so early in the morning that there was a fog as the sun rose above the trees. Their other stops this week included Columbus, Ohio and Kansas City. Maybe Katie will send some picture for the next newsletter; she said she took a bunch.

In church I heard a great lesson about studying and how important it was to pray before any kind of studying, not just studying the scriptures. It reminded me of my freshman year at BYU. I remember thinking as I was walking down the hill from Deseret Towers to take a test on campus that I no longer had the advantage of probably being the only person who prayed when studying for a test like I had at Hayward High! Anyway, since it is the start of a new school year, that is a great habit for us all to remember in our search for any kind of truth.

I read an article by Emily Watts who regards September 1 as a “real” new year instead of the January 1 New Year’s Day with the end of the summer chaotic schedules and the new beginnings with fresh boxes of colored pencils, just-bought clothes and clean lockers. With this clean start it is a time to have a renewed resolved for improvement in all our lives. She writes:

“One thing I’ve discovered is that today’s best choice does not necessarily carry over into tomorrow. Circumstances change, and if I don’t change with them I find myself feeling increasingly out of kilter. . . This takes attention, prayer and even some experimenting. That’s why I’m grateful for an “extra’ new year’s day in September, a time to pull myself together and rethink some things and ask for guidance for the next leg of the journey.”

Have a great week ahead with the fresh start of a new school year and fall crispness starting in the air! I love you! Love, Mom

We learned from Angie (Meeja and Sunhee’s aunt) that Aunt Lynn had a heart attack this weekend. Dad called and spoke with Uncle Mickey. He said that she came home from church and was experiencing enough pain that she asked him to take her to the hospital. He reported that there was no clot but a weakness on the left side of her heart and they will keep her for a couple of days in the Salem hospital. Her daughter, Danielle, will get Adam to and from school during that time.

Also this weekend, DHS removed Klaire from Kyre’s home and put her in a foster home. We are just sick about this. It almost seems that they timed it late enough on Friday to avoid giving a family member a chance to have her! No one is quite sure why they removed her. Even after the emergency court hearing to give DHS temporary custody of Klaire, Angie still was unsure except that it may have had something to do with Kyre’s criminal case hearing and the fact that she signed a paper from that day saying she wouldn’t have contact with Klaire but that was over a week ago and DHS has visited her many times since then! Angie wondered if it was due to the fact that someone in authority told her she shouldn’t carry Klaire any more since Kyre kept falling. It is all such a bizarre set of circumstances. Luckily, Angie was able to go in today and complete an emergency foster care accreditation so Klaire could go home to family tonight. Kyre will be able to be with Klaire tomorrow since Georgia will have Klaire while Angie works. Kyre’s attorney is still hopeful that she will get Klaire back but truly, it is obvious that this will not stop until Klaire is permanently removed one day or another. I am relieved that Klaire will be with her sisters tonight.