February 28, 2010

Dear Children,

Through February we have had some amazingly spring-like weather, sounds and smells but now it is raining again to remind us that we are truly in Oregon. The birds were singing, sun was shining and the Daphne plants were all abloom giving off one of my favorite springtime fragrances. I lost my Daphne plant in the crazy winter weather last winter and have not replaced it as I was waiting until we finished our front yard renovation project that we started almost two years ago. It is going to look nice as we level off the front grass, add a pathway, finish planting the new planter boxes and add our long-planned stamped concrete entryway. It will be a beautiful compliment to our rock entry but it is on the back burner until the work picks up and is steady for some time. This warmer weather also puts a damper on a nice, long ski season like last year and our hopes to get those cheap late season tickets. Oh well, now that Dad is doing so many bids, we need to sit close to the work and dream of skiing NEXT year with a little more financial cushion.

The glimpses of spring like weather has caused homeowners to think about yard projects so Dad has been very busy with quite a few calls. We also have added some great new follow up patterns as we learn to stay in touch so our business name stays in everyone’s minds and it is working! I am anxious to get a presence on the web since we have had a surprising number of calls from Yellow Pages and I wouldn’t even think to look there if I were shopping for a contractor! Dad just finished his first job of the year. It took him longer to finish that job since he tried to do so much of the preparation and clean up himself to keep more of the profit since he has to bid jobs quite low to get them. He was very sore after his last pour, understandably! He continues to torture himself with the spin classes at 24 Hour Fitness; have you tried those???

This being the last week of the month, I finally got out visiting teaching and really enjoyed the wisdom of the message of “self reliance and the dangers of debt” since we have been living it this past while. This past year would have been devastating and much more stressful had we not followed the council of our church leaders to stay out of debt and put money away for emergencies all these years. I appreciate the way I was raised to work hard and live within my means. Even though the future was bleak, we had a measure of peace with our savings and preparedness.

We caught some BYU sports on TV this week. We watched BYU gymnastics to watch for Adrianne’s roommate, Jessica and her floor routine and also to watch for Adrianne in the crowd! This is a picture of her in the audience (from our TV set)! We watched BYU basketball and they just couldn’t hear us coach them to victory from our couch so they lost by a basket!

We have been watching a lot of Olympics this week. In fact, I was thinking that it will be nice to go to bed at a decent time this coming week. At the last minute Katie decided to go to Vancouver to catch up to the Olympic excitement. Her friend, Emma, is working for NBC up there and had a place to stay. Katie’s passport arrived last week so she took off! She only had a short time there but, true to Katie’s style, packed in a lot. She walked her shoes off and also reported having fun ice skating at Grouse Mountain starting at midnight! Her friend Kelly Maks had wondered how closely the border inspects a car since she wanted to go hide in Katie’s trunk since as she didn’t have a passport. Good thing they kept their senses and did not plan such shenanigans as Katie’s car was completely inspected; she said she was treated like a criminal going into Canada. What were they looking for that Katie would be bringing in: Mrs. Butterworth syrup??? She designed a darling postcard with her picture in front of the Olympic Torch and sent them from Canada using my SendOutCards so she only paid U.S. postage and they were delivered immediately. There are so many great features to this service; I just love it!

Grandma returned from Mexico this week with a bit of a tan. She said that she wished our family could go spend a vacation there. Her friends just liked sitting in the sun and talking; no swimming, exploring or playing games like we like to do. It sounds very relaxing to me. What adventurous things she did do, she did alone. This is a picture of her swim with the dolphins. She said that they were amazingly strong and their skin velvety.

I had another great institute class this week. While discussing Helaman 10-12, we talked about the word ponder. When was the last time you pondered over a scripture? My teacher quoted someone saying that we should read the scriptures each day, long enough to have an experience with the Spirit. Elder Maxwell said about pondering, “deep reflection cannot be achieved in the midst of distraction.” Distraction is such an issue these days, “we” need to learn to slow down!

This afternoon Dad and I watched another DVD that I borrowed from the library to “prepare” for our Spain trip. It was Vantage Point filmed in Salamanca. I thought I was going to watch a movie filed in Barcelona but when the first view came, I recognized the Plaza Major in Salamanca. The movie was quite interesting, a very intense movie (one of those that I could not do my planned project while watching!) coving only about 30 minutes in time. Be prepared to be riveted if you watch it. Speaking of Spain, I was very excited to finally find my cousins’ address in Madrid. It is over 30 years old but I am taking a chance to just write and send some pictures and see if anyone still lives there that is related.

Did I tell you that Dad is the new Webelos leader in our ward? He is also keeping his Primary class and is still an Eagle Scout project advisor so he will be busy. He helped with Goodwill/Good turn drop offs on Saturday. Yikes, we are involved in Cub Scouts again!!!

Well, have a great week ahead. I love you. Love, Mom