Dear Children,
This week has just flown by with lots of activities. As I drove out of 
was a PERFECT day to leave town. What a dramatic difference; the coast was gorgeous. It was crystal clear most of the time we were there with temperatures in the 70s and 80s. We also had an excellent room location. I remember not liking the
Our room was on the cove side so I was kind of disappointed to hear that until we got there. We had a spectacular view of both the cove and the ocean. We saw whales most days and sometimes whales can be spotted in the cove (not this time though). We were on the ground floor so we could walk out of our room onto the grass. We ate our breakfast on the sunny grass one morning. We chose to swim in the pool that overlooked the ocean; it was great. When we weren’t swimming, we were playing games or visiting
The day after we returned from the beach, Aunt Denise left and I prepared for a visit from Adam, Meeja and Sunhee starting Friday. I was able to visit with Scott on my way down to pick up the girls in 
We had a very nice visit but I made the mistake (something that I have obviously done wrong hundreds of times without knowing it was wrong!) of carrying a paper out of the visiting room. I always take notes as to the things Scott requests me to do (otherwise I would forget some of the things). I write names with a letter in a circle just like I used to do on the family calendar: it is fast and helps me know the letter is a name and not part of a word. Scott also drew a diagram of the prison on the back of my paper to give me a visual of where he works showing the reason why it takes so long for him to come to the visiting room since he passes through several rooms and guard stations and he is held up when there is a movement through one of the rooms. As I walked out of the visiting room, I reached into my coin bag for the key to my locker and put the paper in the bag. One of the heretofore borderline nice guards asked me what I was putting in the bag and had it been signed off by the sergeant. I didn’t know it needed to; there is no rule posted about that. She grabbed it and asked me what it was. She was so angry as if I was trying to sneak something out of the prison. She didn’t believe me at all of course since, in our Oregon justice system, they have forgotten that simple foundation of being innocent until proven guilty (and we are quite often treated like criminals when we visit all the while the system professes to realize the importance of visitation). I told her she could keep it if I could reread my notes to remember what Scott asked me to do for him. She mumbled something about her being able to confiscate my belongings. She called me over to the main desk when I was getting my car key out of the locker and told me that this “sort of thing” is what could “land me in handcuffs and in a patrol car on my way to the courthouse” and "my son shipped off to a different location.". It was hard to wrap my brain around the intimation tactics being hurled my way. Then the officer at the desk told me he had been “professionally trained in code” and that my paper was full of “code” from my son. Again, he didn’t bat an eye when the truth was made known that Scott didn’t write a word of it and all it was a “to do list”. I should have engaged him in the whole history of trying to cram ten family member’s schedules on one little refrigerator calendar and that is where I “professionally” learned code I guess! It is all such a ridiculous nightmare to step into the prison system of our free country. And all the time I am thinking, “Don’t you dare cause me to be late picking up the girls and cause problems with the unreasonable Lane family!” I felt like I was in a sandwich from hell with both sides pushing me into a Neverland of utter madness. Hmm, maybe that is how Scott feels every moment in there. After they got t
heir fix of bullying they let me go while saying “no worries”. So I turned to them on my way out and said, “No worries; you have got to be kidding me!”
So, a little rattled, I hurried to Kyre’s home where it was the plan for all of us to meet there. They enjoyed playing with Klaire so much that we decided to stay for several hours so the girls could swim in her little turtle pool and Adam and Sunhee played with water balloons. It changed my plans for the evening but they all loved the extra time at Kyre’s place.
Saturday was our annual neighbor hood party with a pot luck, bouncy house and triathlon for the children. Before it got too hot everyone helped picked blueberries and green beans then proceeded to jump on the tramp with the sprinkler under it until the very last minute before the party started. Adam, Sunhee and Meeja play
ed well with all the neighbor children (half of them are in our ward amazingly). The Jorgensen’s put a pool on their front lawn and that is where everyone spent most of their time. Sunhee and Adam entered the triathlon but Sunhee had to use the bike we have for Meeja since the bike we have for her had an irreparable flat tire. We would have stayed longer just relaxing at the Jorgensen’s but Meeja crashed her bike right on that hill by their house. It actually is a miracle she hasn’t done more damage to her body before this. She is determined to perfect her biking skills no matter how many falls she has. This time, though, her fall involved the sidewalk meeting her upper lip so she needed lots of clean up and some down time (although she did not take much down time). She wa
s hoping to get back under the sprinkler when Adam and Sunhee put it on the slide later on but I decided her lip needed time away from the waterslide!
Adam wanted to complete some of his Webelos requirements so we cooked our dinner in Dad’s firebowl. We sat around cooking biscuits and roasting marshmallows just as if we were camping. Dad and Adam set up a tent and slept in it even though it was still VERY warm late at night. Sunhee reminded me that besides Meeja, she also got hurt on Saturday. She slid down the slide onto a bee and it stung her foot! The entire stinger was in tact in her foot; it looked like a thorn. Adam joined the pain cycle when he came down the slide too fast and hurt himself!
Sunday was a game playing day. Sunhee left her Clue Game last time that we bought for her birthday so we had some fun with that also. With the grandchildren here, we had a good excuse to go to the home
ward which is so nice since it is now just minutes away. We learned all the new classrooms and they all had someone they knew in their classes. Grandma Maldonado came over for our shrimp pasta dinner; it was also a great excuse to use my homemade berry pie that I was saving in the freezer. We played games right up until the minute that Adam left to go home.
President Harris was at our ward and he spoke at the end of the meeting. He left us with a quote by Joseph Smith that was something like this: “Everyone is plagued with weaknesses. It is the progress that makes us perfect, not the achievements.”
Adrianne reported that she had a great weekend being able to see some old school friends at her roommate, Rachel’s, wedding in the Bay Area and especially being able to play with Shawn and Aubrey. I think this is the first chance for her to see Bryson. Aubrey invited her to come along on two Nike runs that will help Aubrey qualify for a half marathon in the fall. She received extra points since she showed up with Adrianne’s Nike shoes. On one of the runs they jogged nine miles from the Golden Gate bridge, along the Embarcadero to the
Katie tells me that Nate was in the news, the front page of the Deseret News Sports Page! Here is a link so you can see it: http://www.deseretnews.com/sports/byu-cougars/ I wonder it that was the
I hope you are enjoying this great summer weather also. My garden has never grown so much with all this hot weather; it feels like the kind of summer I had growing up in
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