Dear Children,
Getting back to my normal writing after the computer virus disabled being able to download photos into my computer has been overwhelming. I know that I need several hours to talk with Kodak and I just don’t have that. I am so behind in my family news though, I will go ahead and load a few photos through the lap top so I can get caught up. There is so much about which to write.
From October: After visiting Shawn and Aubrey in California, the next week we were in Utah to help Adrianne and Blake with their new place. They bought a townhouse in Pleasant Grove. Blake can walk to work from there and Adrianne takes the scooter since she also doesn’t work very far away. Although, soon after their move, Blake applied for and got a computer job that makes him happier. He does much of it at home but must commute two days a 
week to Spanish Fork. He was working both jobs right after their move.
Adrianne gets to breath a little barn air as right when you turn down their street; there is a stable with horses. Their home has a small backyard with a little planter box so they can have a garden. Most of the yard is concrete but Adrianne wants to leave some dirt in case they get “an old lazy dog” (I think that is what she called the dog). Behind their gate is a common grassy area with a huge play structure and picnic tables. We could have a fun family gathering there. On Sunday evening Heidi and Bill’s family came by for dessert and their three girls loved the play area.
Dad had to change his flight to come a day later than myself due to work (thank you Katie for being able to change easily at the last minute) but I still headed down on Thursday and spent Friday doing the preliminary work of painting their living room. I enlarged the project as I went along, painting more walls and even painting the base board; it had some areas that needed it badly. We were painting over a dark red wall. The new color looks like peanut shell with a creamy white trim. Blake’s sister, Amber, had given them leftover paint from their home so that was a big help to their budget.
The work progressed at a better speed after Adrianne and Blake got home and Dad arrived later that evening! We accomplished a lot over the weekend. Dad did some concrete crack repair in the back and worked to make their front porch step look nicer. Dad hates to see marks on concrete! We finished the living room and scrubbed all the marks off the wood floor in that room.
I got to do something I like; organize cupboards. They have a great pantry closet off of their kitchen that they hadn’t had a chance to organize yet. I hope that they can find everything now; they were at work on Monday when I did that before leaving for the airport! We stayed at Grandma Bitter’s place each night, not returning until after midnight most nights. We had Sunday dinner at their place with Grandma Bitter. It was her first visit there. After dinner Heidi’s family came. They had been on a drive through the canyon as Bill had just received his new company car. It is beautiful and looks very comfortable.
We were only home a few days until my college roommate, Andrea Osinchak, arrived for the weekend. Knowing that we were going to have a guest, Katie had worked while we were away to try and get most of her things and furniture more incorporated into the home. She moved her bed and most of her belongings into Adrianne’s old room since that is the largest bedroom. Most of her clothes are still in her old room. All of her kitchen items fill the grandchildren closet but it looks much more organized now!
Andrea lives in Delaware and is a professional genealogist so she was traveling for research and to visit clients. When we weren’t watching general conference, she was helping me get my genealogy organized so I wouldn’t be afraid to open it up. We also took her to a group of food carts in Portland so she saw that city culture! Bill will be jealous that we went to Potato Champion, the food card that makes poutine. We bought from several food carts and then sampled everyone’s choices. Through Andrea’s west coast travels, she was able to visit with all of our roommates 9living in Seattle, Boise, Salt Lake and Monticello, Utah) from when I lived in Brownstone in Provo in 1975! I hadn’t seen her since then.
As soon as Andrea left, we went to Judy and Jack Hoagland came from San Antonio to visit their Oregon and Washington children, thinking it would be their last time with them before their next mission. They were waiting
for their papers while at our home but they arrived about a week later. They are going to the Russia Moscow Mission, leaving in February (so now they may have time for another visit). While they were away visiting Julie, we spent the day in Albany to celebrate Adam’s 12th birthday and be at his church so Dad could be part of his ordination to the priesthood. We can’t believe how much he has grown up.
The weekend that Morty and Nate were here for both Oregon Duck and BYU-Oregon State game, Jack and Judy were on the coast with his brother so they all but missed seeing the boys (except during halftime of the BYU game). Right after the BYU game, Morty and Nate, along with Katie, headed to Eugene for the Duck game. Katie had a fun experience working in the BYU broadcasting trailer with a friend. It was great fun to have Adam and Alina wi
th us at the game and it is always tons more fun of course, when BYU wins! It was a beautiful day for football.
After the boys left, Jack and Judy returned. That day I had planned to pull a Katie and go to lunch with friends in Salt Lake. Three of my roommates were getting together since Shannon Smurthwaite was in Salt Lake doing last minute wedding plans with her daughter and of course, Andrea was traveling through by then. But, those darn BYU fans leaving Portland Monday morning after the game, crowded into MY flight and I left the airport dejected and missing lunch with my friends. Oh well, it was fun trying. Plus, it was right during early morning commute heading back to Beaverton so I decided to go check out IKEA again for a TV stand. Yes we have a new TV. You won’t believe it since we are not big TV watchers. Now we have a BIG TV to watch a little bit of it! But did you know that on Monday morning IKEA serves free breakfast right at the opening of their store? It was eggs, potatoes and bacon; kind of fun! I even did some Christmas shopping at the Target there. It was better to stay busy at the airport instead of sit in traffic on the way home. Yeah, got some Christmas shopping done; that always makes me happy!
While Jack and Judy were here, the final games of the World Series started. Normally, I am not too interested in the World Series but Morty, Katie and Nate (and Aaron?) were so excited about the Cardinals playing in it that it was contagious and . . . we had a big TV now so why not watch it! They even got Gregory and Bryson (die hard Oakland fans) excited to watch the Cardinals in the final games. After one game, Morty immediately called Greg to share his excitement. My only warm memory of the World Series was when Nate started Kick and Chase Soccer and he called the pre-season tournament the “World Serious”. Dad and I did have fun following the games through the excitement of our children.
I had a stake mee
ting during the 6th game and parked my car to go in with three Cardinals on base. I hated to leave the car so I was a poor example to my children and asked Morty if he would text me at the end of the innings to keep me up to date (I usually get after him for looking at his phone during church). That game went into extra innings so just as I was done, I could tell by the announcers’ joy that the Cardinals had won which meant that Morty, Katie and Nate would be sitting in Busch Stadium for the final game of the World Series; what a dream come true (regardless of the outcome). But, you all know the outcome and this is one of my favorite photos from the game.
At the end of October we were able to catch one of Sunhee’s volleyball games in a town called Mill City. It was an hour and a half away but the closest game of the season to us that we could attend. She is always fun to watch. She is darling for one thing and gives her all at whatever she is doing.
November was a blur since it went by so fast and flurry of travel and guests again. We started the month in Utah watching the Brady girls while Heidi and Bill were on a cruise. It was great fun to be in their home. Dad spent the first weekend with us. We were able to attend Shannon Smurthwaite’s daughter’s wedding reception while there. The girls spent a fun evening at Blake and Adrianne’s home while we were there and then we headed to Grandma Bitter’s home for a sleepover. The girls love going there. The girls and I even got to see Wendi one of the nights!
I have forgotten all the schedules and running around that a young mother squeezes in her day. I was exhausted but a great exhausted. I loved it. The girls love playing games and have a ton of energy but at bedtime, they have a wonderful routine and sleep well. I should have taken advantage of that time to sleep also but I made the “young mother” mistake of trying to get things done after the children are in bed! It even snowed a little while I was there. We were waiting for Ainsley to wake up from a nap to walk to the park but it started snowing on us!
I tried to leave on Sunday morning to get home for Primary assignments but my flight was full so I rented a car and went back to the Brady’s for one more night. I loved my last evening there when Heidi and Bill had more time to talk about their wonderful trip. As much as I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE being with my grandchildren, as everyone knows, I love even more, quiet talk time with my children. Missing being able to get on my flight was such a bonus to have some quiet time with Heidi and Bill. I love my life and being able to travel around to be with family and, in some cases, helping out our children by babysitting or doing home fix ups.
Arriving home from Utah, we hit the ground running to prepare for the holidays. I came home to tons of SendOutCards commitments. I have so many more people on my team and retail customers new to the service that wanted help with their holiday card sending. Plus, I had three friends in charge of school bazaars to help with fundraising for activities so I said I would buy a table. Yikes! But it reminded me of all the years I helped with fundraising. Afterwards, I realized that I should have offered a letters from Santa service like I used to when I did bazaars years ago since I had the best service for that! Dad was also able to find the bike he had been waiting so long to buy. He is signed up for the Tour de Cure again this summer so now he will have a nicer ride!
Morty came in and out for Duck football games, even at the last minute over Thanksgiving. We were planning on having Shawn and Aubrey for Thanksgiving but just the week before that, Shawn’s boss and several co-workers were fired so he was asked to step up to be the interim boss. He obviously couldn’t leave the area as he had hoped but we are most pleased to know that his company trusted him with that responsibility in such a difficult circumstance.
Kyre, Alina, Adam and Klaire came on the train for Thanksgiving. That makes the trip extra fun. The smell of the train reminds me of my trips as a child to Grand Junction, Colorado to visit Grandma Helen. We played lots of games and ate lots of food. Alina got up with me at 3:30 a.m. to do Black Friday shopping. We were a great team; I would like to do that with her every year!
Grandma Maldonado was very sick that night so we had a few hours of break in shopping to take her to the hospital. I am sure the doctors though me insensitive when I dashed out while they were doing tests that were going to take an hour to get results. By then, we knew she wasn’t having a stroke. We learned her symptoms were from a kidney infection and I was able to bring her home.
Right after Thanksgiving, Dad and I packed and were off to Maui. It was Katie’s suggestion that we go watch BYU football in Honolulu when their schedule came out. We joked that we would go for the weekend! But the trip morphed into something bigger when Katie suggested that we go to Maui first before Oahu. We had three days in Maui and it was fabulous. We stayed at a World Mark, helping to keep costs to a minimum, plus is was a block from the beach! Each morning we went snorkeling in different places that were suggested and found some great spots. The wind would pick up in the afternoon so we would retreat to the pool and hot tub at our place. It was incredible. Dad and I were on the crater at sunrise one of the mornings and then on the last day, we all were up early for a boat tour with the Pacific Whale foundation. It took us snorkeling around sea turtles and over to a reef only accessible by boats. It was so much fun. Plus we saw hump back whales going out and coming back in to the harbor. I would 
love to go back during real whale season and see more.
We planned to leave on a late inter-island flight so we could have a full day in Maui. We went north to a restaurant suggested to me so we could be there during the sunset. It was gorgeous. A fun treat was finding a Santa on the beach sitting on his canoe!
Staying in Wakiki was definitely different than our quiet side of Maui but it was fun also. We found a condo on Craigslist there so I would want to wait and stay on Wakiki again only if we found a deal at one of those nice hotels that pamper you! Otherwise, we need to come back to Oahu to do a session at the temple and snorkel on Shark’s Cove. The swells were too big to snorkel on that side of the island since it was perfect surfing weather. When we stopped on that side of the island, we had fun watching some surfers right where they were going to have a surfing competition that weekend. BYU won their game and we were lucky enough to run into Jenn Jones Kim and her husband after the game. There were tons of BYU fans there. Pearl Harbor has updated their museums and displays even since I was there last. It is so nice. Since it was the week of the anniversary of the bombing, there were survivors there each day. Dad talked to one of the survivors about Captain Bennion’s ship. He said he was in the port a
nd saw that particular ship and all the fires. As much as we enjoyed our visit to Pearl Harbor and seeing all the displays, it was a bit annoying to have the large groups of Japanese tourists push us aside in the middle of reading or listening to something. I know “they” didn’t bomb us but I would expect them to show a little respect to other tourists, especially there (just kind of ironic). We enjoyed our day at the Polynesian Cultural Center. That is the best bargain in Hawaii and the food was fantastic also. We did our own tour and we also took the tram to the temple’s visitor center from there. They do a great job there. Our temple is building a visitor’s center.
The day after we came home from Hawaii, we picked up Sunhee and Meeja for a long weekend. We kept them busy getting our home ready for Christmas and helping us create gifts and delivering them to our neighbors. In fact, as we drove back from Albany, we stopped at a tree lot. Dad and I had lost all chances of any time to go cut down our tree with it getting dark so early and being gone so much. We found a tree and started decorating it the first night that the girls were with us.
Friday was a pajama day! The girls stayed in their pajama all day helping me decorate and make carmel corn for the friends and neighbors. We followed Aubrey latest concoction with mini marshmellows, chocolate (I used red chocolate) and roasted almonds all added to her carmel corn recipe. It turned out yummy! We were going to deliver them that night but, so we didn’t have to get dressed, we went to Grandma Maldonado’s to play games instead!
It was nice that our ward Christmas party was while they visited; it was a breakfast. Sally Farb was in charge so there was a ton of food. And, Meeja and Sunhee got to sit on Santa’s lap. We delivered gifts in between the breakfast and going to Cinderella at Beaverton High that evening. The only gift not delivered is the Mitchell’s so we can visit them when s
ome of you are here.
On Sunday the girls created some fun Christmas cards with their pictures of visiting with Santa and also with Cinderella. Both girls are very creative and knew just how they wanted each one to look. Dad taught Sunhee a another song on the piano; she is fast at memorizing! We worked in Sunhee’s Faith in God booklet; both girls have memorized lots of Articles of Faith. We had a nice sacrament meeting about obedience which was a good reminder to me to be willing to accept a calling that has sounded too overwhelming and totally out of my comfort zone, stake camp cook. My reaction was “Yuck, I do not like going girls’ camp and I know nothing about feeding an army of people.” I have to have faith. I liked what one of the speakers said, “What we become through our life is more important than what we accomplish.”
We left Primary a little early so we could stop in Albany for a dinner and early Christmas celebration at Kyre’s. Kyre had created a wonderful dinner for us. It was such a treat to not have to cook dinner. Adam and Alina had bought special gifts for Meeja and Sunhee so they were able to open them early and Kyre is not going with the children to the Lane family Christmas Eve so she was able to watch them open their gifts.
The next day we headed to Las Vegas! Morty had invited us to come to Li
on King before it leaves Las Vegas at the end of December. We flew down in the afternoon and came back very early the next morning. It was a whirlwind trip but totally fun to do something like that with the boys. Nate treated us to dinner after the show at a Thai restaurant on Fremont Street over close to his place. Zappos has bought a lot of the property on the old strip there and are revitalized that part of Las Vegas in the next few year. We toured Nate’s condo which has a gorgeous view from both his room and the living area.
We had an enjoyable visit with Scott this morning. He is looking great. He has met his distance running goals for his run across America and now is running 15 mile runs in less than 2 hours. He is formulating his running goal for 2012 and he says it will have to do with running through ports of entry of our ancestors where he plans to ask for research from us as he hits a milestone. The prison was in lock down for a while after some gang rioting so he missed some of his holiday performances that come annually.
I know I have missed telling you about a lot probably but it is hard to reach back to all those weeks. My goal is to get this into the mail tonight but I can’t be up too late as I am getting a sore throat and can’t get sick this week! I look forward to the Christmas holidays with many of you. I hope you are having fun with the preparations of the season.
Heidi and Bill started a family tradition of donating preemie or newborn clothes to the Riverton Hospital on the day of Jack’s death and delivery, which was today. They said they had a wonderful day visiting the cemetery and the hospital. They were treated kindly at the hospital and, of course, the hospital was thrilled with their donations. Last year they celebrated Jack’s birthday with coconut cupcakes and have decided to continue that tradition also. Bill has an amazing arrangement with his company to have two weeks off for Christmas each year so that starts now.
I love you all! Love, Mom
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