October 10, 2010

Dear Children,

I am glad that I am not the one driving to Sweet Home tonight. It sat in the car, started guessing some words for the Catch Phrase game Sunhee started and promptly fell asleep until almost Salem! I guess that allowed me to be able to stay awake for Dad all the home. We have had a weekend full of board games, bike riding, backyard fun, basketball and hide ‘n seek. Alina, Adam Sunhee and Meeja are full of non-stop energy and fun as they played all weekend together plus, they can hide in amazingly small spaces so they are great at hide ‘n seek!

There was no school on Friday so Dad and I drove to watch Sunhee’s soccer game Thursday evening. Friday afternoon was spent at the zoo. Dad left very early in the morning to check on a job so he could join us. The weather was just barely damp so the animals were all out and entertaining. We saw several feeding times which is always fun. I was surprised how much the older children loved the zoo; they have been a lot so I thought it wouldn’t be as exciting, but they all love learning. Alina was especially excited for her zoo trip since her entrance ticket said she was an adult!

This was the weekend for bread. Dad made lots of Halboji bread: cinnamon, wheat and white. On Sunday the children and I made a batch of whole wheat in my new mixer (well, it is over a year old but I just don’t use it much). They helped me form the loaves. It tasted great but didn’t rise like normal. I have to keep practicing since I have to teach it this Saturday and I have to be used to a new recipe and mixer (I can’t find my old K-Tec recipe).

We celebrated Adam’s birthday on Friday evening. He, with Alina’s promoting, chose shrimp pasta. Alina was a great helper in the kitchen and learned how easy it is to make. She took home some basil from the yard so she could make it at home. She also made our cupcake frosting on Sunday (We took dinner to the Andrew and Brittany Westhora family Sunday afternoon since they had their baby this week) so she has two more recipes in her repertoire.

More than anything, the grandchildren just loved playing in the yard and being together to just think of nothing but having fun with each other. It was a great weekend; it would be nice to do many more weekends like that and also be able to have weekends to have alone visits with the grandchildren but we have Bryson and Gregory who we haven’t visited in their home since Bryson was born! We are trying to make our Christmas plans with the Oregon grandchildren earlier this year so we don’t interfere with their own family Christmas celebrations. We might combine it with Kyre’s birthday celebration at the beginning of December.

I started another term of my institute class. Among other gospel principles, we will be studying a conference talk each week. That will be wonderful. We discussed President Monson’s great talk on gratitude this week.

I also started a Family History class this week on Tuesday evenings. It should be interesting. I hope I can just get information without getting too involved. I know that sounds horrible but I have other projects to finish before I can allow myself to start doing family research again. I love it and have a hard time just doing a little at a time! Getting back into it seems overwhelming to me. Sister Call talked to me at the class and signed me up to be an Indexer or Extractor. I don’t know if they are interchangeable; I don’t know that much about it yet. All I know is my email quit working the day the site was downloaded on my computer. I will have to figure that out this week when I have time. Aunt Denise just received a calling to work in the Oakland Family History Center so she is going to become an expert. Yes!

I hope AND PRAY that this week is a good one for each of you. Katie thought she would be getting an apartment this week but the apartments that she is looking at are getting rented immediately. She left the grandchildren some of her cupcakes that she prepared for her Singles Ward so we had a fun dessert tonight.

I love you, Mom