Dear Children,
As
promised, I am going to try to describe our 2012 holiday season and the events
in the beginning of 2013. I realize it is old news but I write these not only
to inform all family members of what is going on but to record a historical
dairy of sorts of our lives.
As
always, the holiday season is a busy and fun time of year. My highlight for the
past several years has been the visit from Sunhee and Meeja at the beginning of
December when we have some fun girl time and they help me with baking and
neighbor gifts. I love working with them as they love to help. This year Heidi,
Rebekah and Jenna came just after the creation of our gifts and joined us in
some of our deliveries. The girls had a lot of fun together; Sunhee and Meeja
need to make some trips to Utah
to develop that fun cousin relationship.
While
here, even though the girls have admitted that they get tired of going to the
zoo, all the girls wanted to go see the zoo in the evening for Zoolights. It
was our second visit to Zoolights in just a few days since we had already gone
there for Kyre, Alina, Adam and Klaire's Thanksgiving visit.
The
grandchildren visit helps my Christmas season get off to a great start.
Christmas is my favorite holiday . . . well, actually Thanksgiving is probably
my favorite but part of that excitement comes from some pre-Christmas
preparations. My goal is always to sit back and ENJOY the holidays by being
prepared early in December. That usually doesn't happen and it wasn't the case
this year either. So, I am usually pretty tired when Christmas rolls around.
Maybe someday?
We
didn’t know until the last minute that Heidi and the girls were coming to Oregon in December so we had already planned a quick Utah visit right after the girls’ visit, the main reason being
to see the families that weren’t coming home for the holidays and to take
Christmas gifts to Utah
. Kind of a fun idea that it is cheaper to fly with gifts instead of shipping
them! I was giving the Seversons an ironing board so I wanted to purchase that
in Utah.
While there we were also able to go to a church basketball game of Blake’s.
We always love
having our children come home for the holidays and feel VERY lucky that so many
are able to do that. This year, we looked forward to Gregory and Bryson here on
Christmas morning. Their animation always adds to the fun. Santa left them
“bubble gum and candy”: their most requested wish. Santa was very clever. They
received candy kabobs filled with Starbursts, gummy candy and more!!! One of
the funniest gifts of the season was from Adrianne and Blake. It was too bad
that they could not be in Oregon
to watch the opening of the gift. They gave Nate a Squatty Potty. If you do not
know what that is, you will have to look it up on the internet and watch the
videos and testimonials!
Dad
received a smoker for Christmas so we had fun testing that out for pulled pork
and more. Of course, we had all our traditional meals around the holidays plus
tons of desserts. We had more food than time. I remember feeding the
missionaries Oreo dessert in January since we had leftovers. Speaking of food
traditions, Adrianne served cioppino on Christmas Eve to the Severson family
and they loved it. Adrianne makes the best rolls with a Severson family recipe
so they really had a treat that night.
Gregory
and Bryson were disappointed that it didn’t snow on this Oregon Christmas trip
but we did have lots of fun outside. Dad and the boys had a great time burning
things in the fire bowl. I think the boys could have done that all day! I think
the idea was to roast marshmallows while their parents were off on a run but it
turned into “keep the fire going” with finding anything they could burn! Katie
had fun outside with them also!
We
had an interesting winter season. Dad was without work for several months. Part
of that time he was recuperating from his LAST hernia surgery. Yes, his doctor
said that he needs to work differently so that he doesn't disrupt the repairs
this time as he can't repair it again. This recuperation was a little slower
than last but the reason may have been that the doctor was repairing lots of
scar tissue from previous operations. His stomach area looks so much better! In
Dad's ever positive outlook, he remarked that he was pretty impressed to have
so much “bling” on his body after his
surgery (he was referring to his staples)! The photo below shows him with his
fruit arrangement from Aunt Julie that she sent through Edible Arrangements. It
was so darling and so yummy . . . chocolate dipped pineapple in the shape of a
cupcake!!!
Hopefully,
we will have him retired from such physical labor by 2016. That was always our
goal for retirement until we hit 2007. That is our biggest SendOutCards goal:
to recuperate and rebuild our retirement funds from that devastating year when
the downturn of the construction industry and family crisis changed our
direction for a time. I am determined! I heard someone in church one day talk
about stumbling and stepping stones as they admonished us to quit stumbling and
use those stones to lift us!
We
celebrated Alina’s birthday with her in Beaverton
for the weekend. Kyre and the family traveled up on train. First they visited
another friend in the Lake Oswego
area and then came here. This winter there were many job changes in the family.
Adrianne was lucky to stay working for her same company, Thrive Life, when she
decided she wanted to work less hours so she could continue to do volunteer
work for the Hoofbeats to Healing therapy barn. She is very valuable to them as
she prepares the new horses for the children. Right now, she is also working
with a stallion there to get him ready for shows so they can make more money on
his stud fees. She was made a manager in the marketing department and now has
just received another promotion working with the strategic initiative
department. They say she can work as many hours as she likes but she is still
sticking to part time work. She is much more relaxed. 
Another
big job change from the winter months was with Nate. A start up company lured him
away from Zappos. He tried to explain to me what he does but I didn't quite
understand. It has something to do with short term office space. He is still
working over by Fremont Street
as the owner of Zappos is one of the investors. He is excited about his new
work. He had planned to go to London next year
for an intensive MBA program at Cambridge
but feels like this new job gives him some of the education variety that he was
hoping to get with those plans.
I
had a fabulous trip to Anaheim
in January for SendOutCards. It is a VERY good idea to get away from the cold
and warm my bones in the sun. It felt so wonderful to step out of the Anaheim airport and stand
in the warmth. I wish that I could have stayed longer outside. My meetings were
inside of course. It was worth being inside; it was excellent training.
In
February we had an inspiring stake conference. I appreciate that we still get
to hear from our old stake president, President Childs, since he is the Temple President.
I really enjoyed the message from Sister Childs as she taught that our Father's
plan doesn't leave anyone out. You might know that Jason Orme is in our stake
presidency. I liked what he said, “We have the option to turn the gospel check
list we’ve been given to CHANGE our lives or use the check list just as a list.
We
were able to catch a volleyball tournament of Sunhee's early in February. She
is a natural athlete; she is good at everything. Sunhee has a high level of
integrity in striving to do her best at what she is learning.
In
between Adrianne's position changes at work, she came to Oregon! It was fun having her here and Dad
was healed enough to go skiing with her. They went night skiing at Timberline
since they knew that would be enough skiing for both of them. Morty was able to
catch the end of Adrianne's visit when he came up for some Trailblazer games.
Lucky for him, it was close to his birthday so she made him a beautiful apple
pie . . . his favorite!
Well,
that takes us to the end of February when we left for our cruise, about which,
I have already written. So now, I am caught up on this year; whew! My apologies
for the lack of descriptions! Love, Mom
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