March 22, 2010

Dear Children,

We had a fun surprise Sunday afternoon. As soon as we arrived home from church, we received a call that Angie and Ron were on their way to Beaverton to go to the Nike Outlet and did we want Meeja to spend the afternoon with us. That was a nice treat. We were just getting ready to make omelets so she had lunch with us; she even tried a mushroom.

Besides playing games and working on puzzles, she jumped on the tramp (one of her favorite things to do). She also told us all about Klaire’s birthday party on Saturday afternoon which she and Sunhee attended. She was all excited about the piñata and the tricycle races. She plans on having a butterfly piñata at her birthday party in June.

Hey, did you know that you can get 80 birthday candles in a pack at the Dollar Store? I checked it out after Kyre told me about that deal last weekend. They are cute ones also. I have been paying way too much for birthday candles all these years; imagine the number of candles we have gone through!

Katie was away for part of this week. Meg’s baby died (Mallory’s sister) so she traveled to Utah at the last minute to be there for the funeral. She came home just in time to be dropped off at Mt. Hood Community College for the annual YSA March Madness basketball tournament in Gresham.

She did a great job speaking in our ward sacrament meeting; her topic was Finding Joy in the Journey. She gave lots of life experiences plus quoted President Monson several times. My favorite quote was his from the Music Man, “You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you’ve collected a lot of empty yesterdays”. At the end of her talk she reminded even me that her middle name was Joy!

Along with Klaire, Bryson also had a birthday this weekend. He is the Big One! Here is a one year old picture in his new church clothes. Another milestone in Shawn and Aubrey’s family this week was Gregory getting his first professional haircut; he was so excited about it.

As we march ahead with more of our March birthdays this week, we celebrated Dad’s tonight with a BBQ with six couples, Katie and Grandma. It was a nice, sunny day when we made the plans but this morning was kind of drizzly so, even though it turned out good weather, we set up everything inside! Katie made some beautiful black forest cupcakes filled with a pastry cream and cherries! Those are daffodils from our yard in the picture of Dad!

Bill and Heidi spent the weekend in Mesquite with their friends to start their birthday week for Bill and Rebekah. Grandma Bitter has big plans for a sleepover with the girls the night before Rebekah’s birthday this weekend.

Last, but not least, Adrianne will celebrate her 21^st by flying to Spain on this Friday! At least, we hope that she will. We are on hold with the British Airways strike. We hope we hear today if our flight is canceled. We are fairly sure that our flight to London won’t be canceled but the flight from London to Madrid is in jeopardy. As soon as we hear, we will try and find out what options we have to be rerouted. We all don’t want to give up on this dream trip.

Adrianne also had a bonfire in the canyon this weekend and took sausages to roast. She went with her roommate, Kenna, and several of the boys in her ward. None were successful in getting a good fire going so she rearranged in log cabin fashion and that did the trick. She said the boys didn’t give her the credit but she said she didn’t need any acknowledgment from them since the personal satisfaction was enough.

Have a great week ahead and cross your fingers for us! I love you! Love, Mom

March 14, 2010

Dear Children,
We traveled down to Albany today to spend some time with Kyre, Adam and Klaire. Klaire turns three this Saturday; three going on 13! She is a ball of fire! Adam is a gentle and kind brother. We played games after the birthday celebration; Go Fish, Uno and Boggle, the regulars! Klaire entertained us with all her songs that she memorized. Kyre made us a great stir fry dinner with which Adam helped. Kyre said he also cleaned up the apartment. Katie volunteered to make Klaire birthday cupcakes. They were darling of course.
Katie has been trying the singles ward on for size for a couple of activities and goes to two churches on Sunday since she teaches Sunbeams in the morning in our ward and then goes onto the singles ward in the afternoon. She was expressing disappointment that she was going to be out town for their lesson on bugs since she had a cute ladybug cupcake that she wanted to make her Sunbeams!
Katie and I attended our ward Relief Society birthday party. It was a nice mix of food, conversation, entertainment and spiritual messages. Jeannine Orme entertained us with her violin. She added some fun to it by asking for requests of fiddle music. I had to quickly look in my planner on my funeral page (since it is one of the songs that I want played at my funeral) to get the name of the simple fiddle tune that I loved so much when some of you were taking violin, Amelia’s Waltz. When she played it, it brought tears to my eyes as it took me back to a time when Nate would make that song sing with such expression. I actually think he played it better than Jeannine! I love reminiscing about all the wonderful memories I have of your achievements and happy times.
I have been busy with my Primary Faith in God appointments still. It has helped get some energy into the program; home visits always reap benefits in many ways. At one appointment, one of the boys said he keeps his Article of Faith card in his school binder in case he needs it at school. I told him of the story when I received a call from one of Adrianne’s middle school teachers wondering what kind of scripture Adrianne had just quoted him. He told me that the class has been unusually horrible for a substitute and, after having no success to get the children responsible for the behavior to confess, he told the class that they would all be punished for the behavior. He said Adrianne raised her hand and said, “I believe that man should be punished for their own transgressions and not for Adam’s transgressions.”
I am so excited (and a bit nervous) for our Spain trip countdown! Did you see that this Tuesday Barcelona experienced their biggest snowstorm in 25 years? I don’t know if my cards to Spain reached anyone to whom we might have ties. It would be so cool to be able to talk to relatives while there. Grandma said she was going to write to the priest in Miranda del Castañar and tell him we are coming. I would love you all to be able to see the room packed with the leather bound books that I was able to sit and research over 30 years ago. All that family history in one place and not enough time to copy what was available! I am so anxious to see the town that the Maldonado paternal line came from. I will need to spend some time this week preparing pictures to take. Grandma has spent the past week getting the records that we have all straight and mostly printed out.
Aubrey called this week on their way to picking up Morty at the airport. She and Shawn brought the boys to go to a Blazer/Warrior game on Friday night and then Shawn, Morty and Greg went to another Blazer game in Sacramento on Saturday. We could hear Greg shouting with the rest of the crowd when we called to that game. They had the ten dollar nosebleed section seats but moved down behind the Blazer bench since the stands were so empty.
It was my last institute class of the semester this week. We got to Third Nephi. President Benson once said that Third Nephi needs to be read over and over again. The main thing I learned in class is to use the simple act of prayer more often. We discussed the section where Lachoneus was preparing his people from an impending attack and their first thing was to pray for strength (not for the attack not to happen). He also taught to gather together, fortify themselves, repent and gather necessary provisions as we stand firm for what is right.
In a general conference address by Rulon Craven in April 1996, he said, “Train your mind to obey gospel principles and covenants. Stay on the highway of daily personal and family prayer, the avenue of studying the scriptures and the teachings of the prophets, the road of serving in the Church, and be willing to get off the wrong road daily and on the right road leading to eternal life. Your greatest protection against temptation is an active and vibrant testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which binds us to our Heavenly Father.”
Our visit with Scott was very positive and informative. On Friday he moved again . . . to A Block! He said it has been a great move. He is just getting used to the freedom in A Bock where he can come and go from his cell, interacting with the entire block, at all times (except during three cell counts a day). He feels comfortable there and explains that this move has fewer “new kid on the block” bumps even though he knows he is being watched. His new cell mate, Tony Miller, is a young man that reminds him of Shawn.
One of the privileges that he enjoys most right now is being able to take a shower every night again as this block has their own showers, their own workout room, their own library, seating area and TV room. He described the cooperative nature of most of the men in A Block, like enjoying a feast if a huge batch of fudge that one man made in his cell, to having a freshly ironed shirt form the laundry. Scott makes it sound like a resort, he is so happy to be there.
Scott also received a positive letter from Kyre this week which really makes his week, month . . . His birthday is coming up in April and he said, if anyone wants ideas, he does want money in his account now for things like new shoes. Checks must be made out to DOC for Scott Bitter, SID #17031159 and mailed to: Central Trust, Oregon Department of Corrections, PO Box 14400, Salem, OR 97309-5077.
I love you. Have a great week ahead. Love, Mom

March 7, 2010

Dear Family,

This week has been more quiet. Dad is still busy with bids and trying to get notice above all the companies that come in with lower bids but don’t give as nice of service. Most everyone is looking for a bargain. He has at least two jobs booked which is fantastic; that may take us through March since he tries to do so much of the work on his own!

Katie’s free trial membership to 24 hour Fitness expired last week so she has been doing a lot of running instead of going to the gym. She signed up for a marathon (half marathon) in Seattle in June if anyone wants to join her. She is still on the job hunting marathon and just about done with her online class. She signed up for an online networking site called Linked In to get her resume in front of more people. In order to see her full page, I had to sign up. It was kind of fun. Katie had me check a box that searched my email addresses for other people in Linked IN. Wow, I didn’t realize the far reaching affects of my email addresses. There are even marching band people still in there; I should do a spring clean up!

I have been busy with lots of Primary assignments this week; trying to visit each one of our 8-11 year olds in their home to talk about the Faith in God program. It is really training for their parents so they will realize that the Primary is here to ASSIST the parents to help their children reach their goals. I also am in charge of sharing time this month so that takes some extra preparation.

Since I was making cookie dough this week for my primary visits Eden Whisenant came over and discovered that goodies were to be had. (I took a cookie sheet with chocolate cookie dough balls to the children’s homes. When the cookies were done, that was our signal to be done with our visit and I reminded the child to regularly “chip away” at their Faith in God progress.) So, we had lots of “Eden visits” this week; she is such a sweetheart to have here.

Eden and I had the funniest conversation one day as she was telling me where her baby brother sometimes sleeps. She called it the “fix up” room. As I tried to understand what that could mean, knowing that Chris Whisenant is a carpenter, I envisioned it was where he kept his tools especially when she described it is where you fix holes. But, in the end I realized it was the sewing room when she said the room had a “fix it machine” and she said something about cloth! She is a very fun girl.

I had another nice institute class this week; a different teacher but sometimes a change is refreshing. We talked about the Plan of Salvation and agency. He had some interesting thoughts from a personal study that he had been doing. He worked in Washington DC during the Watergate era and knew Howard Baker personally. During the investigation, Howard Baker became famous for his two questions over and over again, which were, “What did the president know and when did he know it?” So, our teacher took those same questions when he did an in-depth study of Adam and the principle of agency. It was quite interesting. He came up with his own anachronism of thoughts:

L- Law based on the Lord’s commandments (2Nephi 2:26)

O-Opposition (2Nephi 2:11)

C-Freedom of choice (2Nephi 2:27)

K- Knowledge (2Nephi 2:26)

All these things are necessary for us to be held accountable in the exercise of our agency. In Alma 29:5 it explains that we can’t be held accountable if we didn’t have the above knowledge. I am so thankful for the knowledge of the gospel in my life.

Dad and I had a quiet but enjoyable anniversary this week. We didn’t take our usual trip this year; we figure Spain is a great celebration! We did give each other a gift of a nice dinner out, somewhere we would never go otherwise, Morton’s. They had a special that I saw online that was amazing; it was very nice to try something new.

With a few good days of weather, Dad moved my lilac tree to one of our new planters in the front. It was temporarily in the garden for too many years! It is going to be so pretty to look out the front windows and see it in bloom.

Dad received a text message this week that Nate rocked his GMAT exam. Dad was so excited for Nate; he had a wiggly voice as he told me. We didn't even know that Nate was taking the exam! Even though he received a great score, he decided he will take it again and this time he will study. Oh, how nice it would be to be able retain knowledge like that!

March is a big month ahead with all the birthdays ahead: Bryson, Klaire, Dad, Bill, Adrianne and Rebekah! Happy Birthday month all of you!

I love you, Mom

"See what you can do about bringing a little joy and happiness into others lives and create great and wonderful friendships to sustain and help you through life." Elder L. Tom Perry