Dear Children,
So much has happened since I last wrote; I do not wish this to be an epistle so I will briefly talk about the events of the past month. Biggest news in the family:
Adrianne is engaged!
Monday afternoon Blake Severson asked Adrianne to marry him over foil dinners in a park. He knows Adrianne! They were headed to his Severson Grandparent’s family reunion in Bear Lake for three nights so they made their engagement official at the family home evening that night in the lodge. If you want more details, you will have to ask Adrianne. Adrianne was very impressed with the lodging at
Adrianne is here this weekend so we are getting more details and making some preliminary plans. They are deciding between February 25 or the 26th which is surprising to some of the Severson family since they are from
Going is reverse order, the next big event was having Alina stay in our home for the past few days. What a delight it was to have her cheery and totally sweet presence in our home. My eyes are watery as I write this as it made us SO happy and we have longed for this time with her. She used to be our fun buddy to spend the night years ago. When she was young and would call to come over, I would have to ask if she asked her parents first since she used to make her “own” arrangements! Now, she is a beautiful young woman.
With Alina, we played lots of games of course, trying not to let her “clean our clocks” so to speak. She brought a new game to us, Phase 10, and Dad really loves it since he won! She loves a challenge and we try to rise to it. We taught her ping pong and by the time she left, she was a challenge to beat at that also. She is also gifted in coordination besides table games. I remember when we took her skiing and as she learned so quickly, she exclaimed, “I am a natural!”
Alina and Adam are planning a garage sale to clean their play area of toys that are no longer bei
ng used. So, Alina’s responsibility, besides tagging and pricing, was to make signs. We spent a good portion of the day making quite a few signs. Alina claims to not be artistic but she is very creative and has darling penmanship. Alina said she likes being here alone since all attention was on her; every grandchild needs grandma and grandpa alone time! We adore all our grandchildren.
On the drive up here, Alina told me that she had just set up a FaceBook account before coming so she got the “Grandma Lecture” in the car about not saying anything on FaceBook that you wouldn’t say face to face to someone and that it is “better to be kind than to be right.” She asked me to help her put pictures from her visit on her FaceBook page, if you call it that. So now I am a little less FaceBook challenged since I had to learn how to do that. I love to learn new things. She searched for all her aunts and uncles and sent friend requests. You will have fun seeing the pictures of her; she is gorgeous of course.
She especially wanted to put up pictures of her at the Dew Tour with Aunt Katie. Since Katie worked for NBC at 
s all sweaty.
Alina came right at a perfect time since it allowed her to spend a few hours with her before she headed to the barn to get ready for her horse camping adventure. They ended up camping on one of the horse owner’s property in Estacada which she said was absolutely beautiful. It was SO hot this weekend and it had a river on the property which was perfect!
On the only full day that Adrianne was here, she wanted to work on a Christmas Tree Quilt that she planned for a friend last December. I had never returned to the one I started for Grandma last Christmas! So, she got me started thinking about those again. I haven’t been able to stop working on them. There is something about sewing a creative piece that is so therapeutic to me. There are many things that I should be doing this week but loved the detour of sewing the tops of some quilts for future gifts.
It was sad to have Adrianne go back to
Last Sunday all of church was dedicated to being a disciple of Christ and treating others kindly. We needed to teach that message in our Primary so I used an old visual I had made years ago and told the story of Zelmgid. It is a cute fable that teaches that we need to look for the good in others and be kind to those who are different. Sacrament meeting surprisingly had the same topic. Sister Shayegi was my favorite speaker. She talked about how living the gospel transforms us. Explaining that the Lord sees us a forever person and of course the best in all of us, she quoted President Uchtdorf saying, “Start where you are at to be a disciple of Christ.”
Before Alina’s visit, Adam came for five days. The Brady family was here for part of that time. Adam is a great family person; he loves being around his family. He enjoyed playing with his cousins and especially Uncle Bill. Bill gave him some pointers and taught his some ping pong strategy. By the time Adam left, he had improved so much. I am going to have to leave the Ping Pong table down to practice with Dad so we can be up to the challenge on the next grandchildren visits!
This next week, I will be leaving the table down as it will give Grandma Maldonado and I lots of space to work on her scrapbooks. For her birthday, I gave her five days devoted to catching up her scrapbooks that she and I (and Adrianne also) started the summer before their 50th wedding anniversary. We got to the 1990’s so we have a ways to go!
August 22, 2010
OK, so it is no longer the 15th, the day that I started this! I am devoting the entire rest of Sunday to finishing this, except for a short break to go see Brother Salter.
My plans this past week were to drive to 
Dave and Karla took their family to the coast for a family trip and stopped overnight here on Thursday before they headed to
Dad really loves his biking. Uncle Scott gave him a real biking outfit of which he is very proud. He dreams of having a nice bike like the one that he rode on with Scott in 
store to check out their crepe myrtle trees after he helped at Stephen Green’s eagle scout project. He got his exercise in!
The last time I wrote, was right before our trip to
We loved being in 
as an excellent home for entertaining a lot of guests. Aunt Denise planned some fun birthday games for the party and Nate was an excellent MC. I think everyone had a fun time. Aunt Carla even had pressured hoses for a fun obstacle course. Any water games are fun in
Most of the family had to leave on Sunday but we still kept the game playing going at the Tobler’s, playing Pictionary and a fun game of fast charades (I can’t remember the name) and of course, more eating. Aunt Carla did a fabulous job of planned for and creating wonderful meals for everyone.
That afternoon we were also able to celebrate Shawn’s birthday, it is not often when we are with him on his birthday anymore! This was really a treat. With everything else going on, Aubrey tired to make him his
favorite banana cake. She didn’t like the way it turned out so she made a repeat just about a week ago and sent me a picture from
After everyone headed back to their homes, Aunt Denise and Carla, Grandma and I headed to a relaxing trip to
As soon as I came home to
The next day, Heidi and Bill’s family came to 
he girls favorite thing to do was play in the yard. It was quite a treat for them since Meeja and Sunhee came to spend one night and then Adam came for the weekend while they were here. Plus, they went and visited Kyre, Klaire and Alina. Adrianne and I took the girls berry picking one morning; they had big purple rings around their lips! We picked boysenberries and we purchased an extra flat this time to make the trip worth while.
The week that the Brady family was here, our cul-de-sac was the place for a huge fundraising garage sale (I mean HUGE) for Risa Whitaker. We used the Jorgenson, Duda, Whisenant and our driveways. Th
ey had been storing donations for a couple of weeks at a storage unit and unloaded it with a U-Haul truck. The grandchildren had fun time spending their dollar with all the many choices. Jenna dove into the sea of stuffed animals asking if she could keep each one. She looked so cute. The garage sale earned over $7000.00 for Risa’s expenses.
Oh, I forgot to mention that we also hosted an 80th birthday party here in 
igh school friends even came! Plus, lots of her Summerlake ward friends came to the party. We lucked out on the weather; it wasn’t too hot, just perfect so we could use the deck. It was a great gathering.
Dad and I had a nice visit with last Sunday. Luckily, the missionaries were very accommodating, coming later than usual, when I realized that I have invited them on the day we planned to see Scott. Scott has had some great visits with our family and Payne families that have carried him through a most difficult hearing (over the phone for him) with Kyre this past week. Although things didn’t go as hoped, Scott did an EXCELLENT job of representing himself against all odds and laid some great foundation for his ongoing legal work for his post-conviction relief. It will take a few years but if anyo
ne can do it, Scott can! He has worked hard on his case and is now a legal assistant in the law library and has found the strength to work on his own case after finding it just too discouraging for so long. Scott has been running alot outside in the prison yard and also on the exercise equipment inside. He is keeping track of his miles and is running a loop through the western states to visit all the relatives!!! Next he plans to run form Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine.
Whew! I may have forgotten something else but think that just about covers the last month. I need a nap now!
I love you and hope you are planning some good goals for the fall. Love, Mom
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