June 30, 2011

Dear Children,

We had an exciting visit with the girls this past week. On Thursday I drove down to pick up Meeja, Sunhee and Alina so we could go to the Portland theater performance of Mary Poppins. Katie, Grandma and Dad also joined us. We all loved it: our seats were great and the songs and performers were so enjoyable. I was actually surprised that none of the girls had ever seen the movie. We planned to watch it later in the visit but never had time to sit down in front of a whole movie.

We filled our time with lots of games of course, jumping on the tramp, riding bikes, doing some baking and learning lots of facts about Justin Bieber! Dad and I knew nothing about him but Alina educated us! She wrote a book filled with facts and pictures of him and continued that work each day while she was here. She got Sunhee hooked on the work also. What was really fun was that Nate came for a last minute trip so he and Katie had fun fueling the craziness over Justin Bieber.

Zappos was flying him to San Francisco so he came by way of Portland a few days early since Katie invited him to go to a special showing of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory at one of the McMenimans in Portland (one of Nate’s all time favorite books as a child). He came in at midnight Friday night and instead of running through Forest Park as he planned the next morning, he was so kind to stay and play with the girls and give them lots of his fun attention, including jumping on the tramp (cracking the egg), biking with them and playing basketball. Of course he showed off his flips too! He had them laughing belly laughs; they were really encouraging his crazy humor!

We had an early birthday celebration with him on Saturday evening and he and Katie stayed to play games with us. The girls gave him a bag full of gummy candies, some of his favorites treats and we bought him an Oregon (scenes of Oregon) biking shirt that he was admiring at REI on his last visit. He is a hiker but we are trying to influence him to include biking in his outdoor adventures (Dad is trying to convince him to do a Las Vegas Century with him in 2012). Sunhee pulled the “need some time with my sister, Alina, card” most nights and kept terrible teenage hours including this particular night when three of Katie’s guy friends came over and stayed until very late playing games. For the birthday celebration, I made one of Nate’s favorite meals; hash and roasted vegetables was his request. Katie made fresh strawberry cupcakes for him with some of our twenty two pounds of Hoods that the girls and I picked on Friday morning.

We had perfect weather to pick strawberries and even ALMOST finished making our jam by the time we left that day to go bowling with Grandma. Grandma recently bought trekking poles so she met us at Big Al’s over by her condo and then we ended a full day at Red Robin to celebrate Meeja and Sunhee’s birthdays this month. The girls were a big help with the jam; they are very good to help.

Alina has stated to think of ideas in order to earn money for her Washington DC school trip next year. If any of you have great fundraising ideas, pass them along to her. She needs to earn about $200.00 a month. She has started making flyers to sell cupcakes in her area.

This weekend was our stake conference with lots of great messages. I liked the thought from Sister Dykes (our outgoing mission president’s wife) when she said, “If you feel distanced from the Lord, it isn’t He who has turned from you.” And then other powerful messages about prayer and how prayer REALLY works. Sometimes I forget the simple steps to improve my life and so this meeting had some good reminders.

It has been fun to help Grandma with her new SendOutCards business. She had been sharing my wholesale account all this time but then, when the company recently announced their new packages for retail customers and saw how easy it was for customers to start now, she realized all the referrals that she was giving me, could help her pay for all of her card sending! She is really excited and is a great learner. She practiced on Alina for the purpose of practice but also so Alina knew more about the service since the system we gave Kyre for her birthday last year was upgraded to all the bells and whistles with the new announcements. Now Alina can help her mom get used to using all the fun new features available to her.

We weren’t sure how long we were going to be able to keep the girls. Morty had asked if I would come down to Las Vegas to give him a couple of days reprieve from the store. Aaron has been camping through some tours of the Grand Canyon, Zion’s and other parks with a friend visiting from Australia and some other friends. We learned from Bill that Aaron was also in Provo also as they went to lunch. I called Morty on Saturday to see if he still felt that he really needed me (the girls were begging to stay through Tuesday). The flights returning on Wednesday night were also looking difficult, and I needed to be home for meetings on Thursday, so he said he would handle it alone. With the girls staying through Tuesday, we were able to combine taking them home with seeing Sunhee play softball Tuesday night in Albany!

Today I feel like I got hit by a Mac truck but what really happened is I was rear ended on Scholls Ferry by two cars last evening, one of which was a tank of an old car. My bumper must be strong as there isn’t much damage. The car that caused the accident looked like an accordion in the front. I am going to see if I feel good enough to do some running, at least getting out for a good walk.

As you can see, our entry way bird nest in the fuchsia basket is progressing quite nicely. Cathy Crandall came home from Yosemite and was able to identify the bird as a Junco. She sent us bird information that we studied during a Family Home Evening that Sunhee was in charge of for a Faith in God requirement. She shared some scriptures about the Holy Ghost. We learned from the bird book that the babies that just hatched will be out of the next in about 9 days!!!

This Friday we are crossing our fingers that our flights stay available to go visit Shawn and Aubrey and the boys over the July 4^th weekend. We are looking forward to that and know that the weekend will be filled with crazy busy fun! Aubrey talked us into (well, she didn’t have to talk us into it really) a 5K run on the morning of July Fourth but I know Aubrey is FAST and I have a slow shuffle. I hope that I am not the last one to finish this race! We hope you all have something fun planned for the holiday.

Today is Bill and Heidi’s 10^th wedding anniversary! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

I love you, Mom

June 19, 2011

Dear Children,

Happy Father’s Day! This will be a short note so I avoid getting behind this summer. We had a great day today. Dad had lots of calls; that always makes his day. We both had assignments in Primary today so it was nice to come home to relax a bit. It feels that I have been teaching Sharing Time forever; one more week left after stake conference this week. I made some bargains with some of my Primary assignments during May when I was gone a lot plus I am getting ready to tell them I am going to be gone a lot in August!

Dad wanted a BBQ for Father’s Day dinner so we had salmon but I also did some chicken for when Katie arrived. She had to work until much later in the day. She was going to make cupcakes until her shift got changed to the later one so I made Dad’s requests: cherry chip with chocolate. I scooped out the middle and topped them with a very dark chocolate ganache and then frosted the top. They were yummy! Grandma Maldonado came and joined us for dinner.

Thank you to everyone who donated money towards Dad’s Tour de Cure. He is very happy about it and excited to do his first 100 mile bike ride. It is supposed to be a very pretty route through the Hillsboro area and plus it is a great cause. After watching Mindy suffer with diabetes and then die from it eventually, that is one disease from which I want to stay away!

We started our Father’s Day by visiting with Scott. He was so happy that we came. The visiting room was very crowded which was good to see. He had fun relaying some “small world” experiences he had this past week. He ran into someone (from a part member home) to whom he had been a home teacher many years back and then another man, Matt Duskin, who kept looking closely at the cards I send to Scott with family pictures on them. He kept asking about Aaron, saying he thought he recognized him. Then it somehow came out that he went to school and dated both Kellianne Luman and Jaime Jorgensen (Richardson). He asked about Jeremy Luman and Janna Richardson. Isn’t that odd? Scott has had a lot of men ask him how we send cards created with our own photos and even old photos. They all say that they wish they could get cards like that, especially ones with old family photos so they can relive great memories. I didn’t realize what an impact they could have there.

Earlier this week Grandma, Katie and I went to the silliest movie. It was called Judy Moody and . . . (something about her summer)! I like children’s shows but I don’t think I need to see that one again! Speaking of children, Kyre participated in the Relay for Life walkathon in Albany again this year and Alina, Adam and Klaire did it with her. Alina walked the entire night! I forgot to ask again what award Alina got at her school assembly this past week. Summer vacation is officially here for everyone now. We got to speak with Meeja this week to wish her a happy birthday. She sounds excited to come here next week.

And speaking of vacation, Adrianne and Blake went to Bear Lake this weekend for his birthday. They said that they had a great time and one of the funny things they did was take all their loads of laundry that they had been saving up since the WorldMark has a washer and dryer in each unit and they don’t have to use up their quarters! Adrianne was pretty pleased that she made Blake an ice cream cake with Tillamook Chocolate Peanut Butter ice cream!

Last thing: we have a little bird sitting on her nest nestled down in our hanging fuchsia plant in the front entryway. I hope she is still there when Alina, Sunhee and Meeja arrive this Thursday afternoon. They will stay until Sunday night or maybe even Tuesday depending on my flights to Las Vegas.

Have a great week! Love, Mom

June 13, 2011

Dear Children,

We did it! Our first triathlon! It is a great one with which to begin as all the paths are mostly flat; nothing difficult. I was wishing that we had been signed up for the half mile swim instead the quarter but, once I got into the water, I was relieved to only be going a quarter mile! It is VERY different swimming in a lake with in a pack of people going along the same route.

A fun extra to our event this weekend was that Nate joined us. He was in Seattle this week for some Zappos meeting with Amazon. Instead of going back to Las Vegas, he bought a ticket to fly down here, brought a wet suit and gear, signed up for the event and joined us! Although, Nate didn’t bother with the quarter mile swim, he went for the half mile all without any training!

The only mistake we made was going to Mongolian Grill late the night before. You probably remember how you kind of feel sick the morning after going there; well, our morning came VERY early since we needed to drive across town and get our transition area all set up before the race. We decided that next time it would be best to go to Mongolian Grill AFTER the event!

We had good triathlon weather, not too cold and not too warm. It was overcast most of the time with a few sunny moments; the sun breaks felt good as I was waiting for my swim start. Nate start was well before Dad and I started since he was in the macho group of twenty somethings doing the half mile swim. Dad’s group left a little before my group. Since I was in the last start group, it was going to be obvious all event that I was on the slow side (not being able to blend in with later starters . . . rats!)

Dad and I had a great time. Dad says the triathlon was 10 times more fun than he thought it would be. We enjoyed “the ride” the entire event which was evidenced by our transition times. They keep track of how long it takes you in between events; where you change gear. While most people around our numbers were in and out of the transition area in 3 to 4 minutes, one of our times was 15 minutes! We stopped and chatted with Nate during one and of course, I had my potty stops. How can you swim in cold water and not have to go to the bathroom the minute you get out??? Dad had fun looking at our statistics on the website Saturday evening. He placed first and I placed second in our divisions which was in direct correlation to the number of people in our divisions!!! Hey, it was our first and we had fun . . .and finished!

As we walked away from the event, Nate, Dad and I all were planning next year’s event and wondering who would be willing to join us. Blue Lake Park is a beautiful place with lots of picnic facilities. It would be a fun place to gather the family. The grandchildren would LOVE digging in the sand and all the grassy areas to run. There are BBQs all around. Who wants to come?

With a fat permanent marker, they write your name on the back of one leg and your participant number on the back of the other. As I was scrubbing my age off of one leg and starting on my number, I got the idea that I could use it in my Primary Sharing Time the next day. I was talking about the joy of keeping our baptismal covenants, to remember Jesus, to keep His commandments and to live like Him by helping others. As I started to scrub that number, I was reminded of what it represented and the planning and hard work to work to complete the goal of finishing a triathlon. It was so exciting to reach that goal; I felt so happy. I realized that the great sense of happiness was pale in comparison to the great sense of true happiness we all feel when we know we are doing out best to keep our covenants daily (and the rewards are much greater!).

Katie and Grandma joined us this weekend for some fun events with Nate. Katie and Nate went to a Timbers soccer game while Dad and I went to Megan Jensen’s reception. It is always great to see and talk with old church friends that we seem to never run into. Katie arranged for the day off on Sunday so Nate could go with her to the singles ward. She also stayed here Saturday night and got up to make German pancakes which Nate appreciated. We had a steak BBQ for Nate after church and played a few games before having to rush him to the airport. We were all sorry to see Nate go; he adds so much fun to everything.

Meeja turns seven this Thursday! Send her some well wishes. Everyone here in Oregon finishes school this week. Last week was Rebekah’s last day on school (on Ainsley’s birthday). Alina is getting an award as her school assembly this week. Adam had a fun campout at this weekend for Father’s and Sons. He went with a ward friend since Dad couldn’t take him this year. Klaire had a talk in Primary and she needed help so Adam went up and helped her through the talk. He is such a kind brother.

This is birthday week with Blake and Aunt Denise having birthdays also. Blake and Adrianne found a WorldMark room to rent for the weekend to have a little vacation for his birthday. They both were able to take off an extra day for a long weekend. I am anxious to hear how the property is at Bear Lake.

Well, have a great week ahead. I love you

June 5, 2011

Dear Children,

Wow, what a weekend we have had! Yesterday the temperatures were in the 80’s; it felt like real summer weather. It was so nice. Dad and I drove out to Blue Lake Park to scope it out for the triathlon next Saturday. We also wanted to test out our wet suits in open water and see what it was like to swim without poll lane lines! What a perfect day to test them out! Blue Lake Park is so nice: lots of walking trails, picnic tables, covered shelters, fountains and the lake. It was very crowded with lots of family and community gatherings.

Luckily, the clinic that we had wanted to take was still going on so we got come tips about putting on our wet suits from one of the wet suit manufacturer’s representatives. Good thing since the guy at the store told us to get our wet suits wet before putting them on and that is NOT the case! We swam quite a bit in the cold and kind of murky water. Although it took some getting used to, we came away knowing that we CAN DO IT! After pulling our wet suits off, we sat on the grassy bank and let the sun warm our skin. I love that feeling. The best part was just sitting there to relax. Dad and I both commented how good that felt and that we needed to schedule in “relax time” into our lives since it just won’t happen. Both of us seem to have endless work, well, everyone does actually. We just need to get better at replenishing ourselves.

We jogged-walked for some time afterwards to get the feeling of what it would be like to keep our swimming suits on for the other parts or the triathlon. Even when we came home, we got on our bikes to get the full experience. Now we know what to expect.

Even after all of that, when I got ready to do my Saturday evening errands, Dad decided to head downtown and join up with the Starlite Parade 5K! He did it; he actually added that to his day. There were over 4000 runners this years and probably many more spectators due to the beautiful weather that we were having.

Nate is coming for the weekend. He has meetings for Zappos and Amazon in Seattle so he will get here on Friday and do the triathlon with us. Well, he won’t be WITH us since he signed up for the longer swim. Katie is probably looking forward to a food cart companion with him in town! I did buy some Groupons for food carts about a month ago knowing I would have to wait a couple of months before tasting much of anything from a food cart.

It was fun to talk with Sunhee this week. She turned 10 years old! She was in the middle of a “Spa Birthday Party” at her home with a couple of her friends. She is so sweet. She sounded just as excited to talk with us even though she was playing with her friends; it makes us feel so good. For her birthday, she is coming up to Beaverton towards the end of June for a weekend to go see the theater performance of Mary Poppins. We are looking forward to that. Grandma Maldonado and Katie are coming along also. Sunhee is playing softball this spring so we will try and get to a game.

We were able to do some family sealings at the temple this week. I didn’t know I still had some of the cards in my temple bag. Some of the names were even Spanish names so they have been waiting a long time for me to get around to that sealing (I was pregnant with Morty when I started doing the temple work for those names)! A couple od the names were from the Patterson family side. I like doing the work when I can remember the great feeling I felt when I found a relative’s name in my research. I would like to get back to that someday. I did learn how to do indexing this week. It is pretty fun. One of the Whisenant boys in our ward is organizing that as an Eagle scout project.

On Memorial Day Heidi and Bill’s family took Grandma Bitter with them to visit Jack’s grave. The Payne family was there to visit Grandpa Payne’s gravesite so the Payne family invited them to gather afterwards for Thai food. The Payne families were kind enough to tell Heidi and Bill that they would like to help them get a headstone for Jack’s grave. Uncle Jerry was able to get Grandpa Bitter’s headstone inspiration corrected and took Grandma Bitter up there to see it. She said everything looked beautiful.

We are caretakers for Miss Kitty this week. Grandma Maldonado is in California visiting with Aunt Denise and her family. She was anxious to get down there to see Asteria Alice, Wiley and Michelle’s new baby born April 22. I was lucky enough to see her after I returned from Lake Tahoe. We arrive back in Antioch late from our trip to Tahoe for Allison’s wedding and I was leaving at four the next morning so I was so happy that Michelle and Wiley brought her over to Denise’s so we could see her. She is so darling and SO alert. She holds her head up like an older baby. She started rolling over when she was only three weeks old. She loves doing it and it doesn’t take much encouragement!

We visited with Scott this morning. He is feeling well and still working on his running although, it sounds like he is still recuperating from his marathon. He is a great example of doing what he is able with his limitations. He also decided after the Japan tsunami to start saving water in his cell, which he has been successful doing. He said that they have a sand volleyball pit so he has joined in with some of that.

I have been playing volleyball every Tuesday night after 9:00 with some other ladies in the ward. There are some great volleyball players in our ward; I am about the worse. I have the bruises each week to prove it. But this week, I have non so maybe my body s getting used to it! Alina’s volleyball went undefeated this season. It was the first time Alina had played with a volleyball team.

There has been lots of excitement with my SendOutCards business for the past couple of weeks. I have been very happy to be so busy since everyone loves the new Retail Subscription Package that has no upfront fee but allows use of all the bells and whistles of the entire website. It has been a fun couple of weeks!

Dad has been VERY busy with all the referrals we have been getting and especially with the sun starting to shine. He has been busy with lots of bids and probably everyone will be clamoring for their jobs to be done all at the same time; yikes!

Since I was gone on last minute trips so much in May, I bargained with the Primary presidency that I would do all of the May Sharing Times (for which I was in town) plus all of the June Sharing Times. Today, we talked about faith and repentance. The scripture for the month is the Fourth Article of Faith. Since we have stake conference at the end of the month I had to combine two of those principles in one day. That is a lot of doctrine! I talked about the Anti-Nephi-Lehies repenting of being idle, stealing and killing people. I showed the children the picture of them burying their swords as proof that they never wanted to kill again. So I gave each of the children a paper sword and had them write down on it something of which they could repent and promise to not do anymore. Then we buried our swords outside (hope they remember what they wrote down; HA!). I did that before when I was in Primary and the children seemed to understand the concept.

Good news: We got a little bit of our garden in this week. Woohoo! Have a great week ahead. Work hard but play hard also. I love you, Love, Mom