November 28, 2013

Dear Children,

HAPPY THANKSGIVING to you all! We hope that you are having a wonderful day today. We are celebrating in Beaverton with a smoked turkey by Dad! Today is also my birthday so Dad offered to cook the turkey and use his new smoker. Well, it isn’t that new; Santa got it for him last Christmas! We are still learning how to use it.  We practiced a turkey on the missionaries about a month ago but while in Utah last weekend. we heard rave reviews from the Brady family about Black and Adrianne's smoked turkey so he is following their amazingly delicious recipe today.

Morty came in last night, Kyre, Alina, Adam and Klaire came in yesterday, Grandma Maldonado is here in town and Katie comes after work tonight. I love when the family gathers. And here is a bonus of all bonuses: Dad already has the Christmas lights up!!!  YES, I love driving home and seeing our home sparkle!!!  With Thanksgiving landing late and the fact that we will be in Mexico next week, we will cut our tree down this weekend, decorate a little, do some holiday baking and neighbor treat making in the next few days and then have an early Christmas with Kyre’s family on Sunday morning. 

Just a quick update on Grandma Maldonado and then I will catch you up on our lives since September.  Grandma planned her bucket-list trip to Israel, a tour package with Victor Ludlow as a special speaker in late October.  Smartly, she traveled into Tel Aviv a day early with a friend from old Hayward Ward so they could rest from the flight before they caught up to their tour. After they awoke the first morning, they took a walk on the waterfront towards the port of Jaffa and Grandma tripped over a rock barrier. She was rushed to the hospital with a broken nose, a couple of hairline fractures on her head and several other bumps and bruises. They kept her in the hospital for most of the scheduled trip to make sure that the plastic surgery they did on the end of her nose was going to heal correctly. She had fabulous care there but how disappointing that she missed the tour except for the last day when she traveled on the bus with the group as they stopped throughout that last day on the way to the airport to go home! She did get to see some of her favorite spots to visit: the Garden Tomb, Golgotha and the Garden of Gethsemane on that last day and the day prior when a taxi driver took her to get her glasses repaired.  Her long trip home was of course very difficult with her injuries so it has taken some time to get back to feeling better. She has been told that she will have headaches for a while and is still in some pain but, just this week, she has had some better days. Today or tomorrow we will sit and watch a video that her tour provided her to see the sights that she saw but also missed. We are glad that she is doing better.

In October and November we have had a couple of delightful visits with Morty; thank goodness he loves the Ducks and the Trail Blazers. If I understood him correctly, he is going to every Duck game this season, even away games! On the first weekend that he came, I had meetings in Hartford, Connecticut for SendOutCards to which I was trying to fly. Flying to the east coast on standby is not very predictable since I was flying on US Air. I got as far as Denver after rerouting my flights at the last minute to no avail. I was supposed to fly on a red eye out of Denver which filled just hours prior to departure. I slept in the Denver airport hoping to get on an early morning flight. I had a couple of choices but none worked. Finally, very disappointedly, I gave up. But the light at the end of the tunnel was that I wouldn't miss any of Morty's visit that weekend.

Morty came for another Duck game while St. Louis Cardinals were playing for the league title so he had Katie do some tweaking of his flight to be here earlier for that Friday evening game. We ate our dinner in front of the game and Katie joined us. I think Morty was here with Katie in our home another time when the Cardinals clinched the National League Title. Morty tried unsuccessfully to get World Series tickets. He usually buys enough to resell and pay for his travels to the World Series. Katie and Morty decided to go anyway, stay with one of Katie's KSDK friends and watch the game in St. Louis wherever they can arrange it. They were in the ballpark for at least one of the World Series games I know.

When Morty is here, I see more sports on TV than I ever do! With the St. Louis Cardinals game on Friday night, the little glimpses of Morty's preferred sports teams in between other things we were doing on Saturday and then, the VERY long BYU versus Texas game. We were watching it delayed (to skip the commercials) but even the 4 1/2 hours that Dad set to record, didn't capture the game to the end! We missed the last two minutes and 30 seconds. Luckily, shortly thereafter we learned that BYU not only made a touchdown in the last minute but also an interception which ended any chances for Texas. The game was exciting throughout the many hours. Sometimes I will watch a Duck game when I know my children are there but I had had enough TV sports by Saturday evening so I did not see any of the Duck game that Morty was at.

We traveled down on Sunday, October 20 for Dad to ordain Adam to the office of Teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood. Can you believe that he is already that age? His quorum leaders speak very highly of him and Dad says that he is the chorister for priesthood opening exercises. When he was living with Aunt Lynn, he learned how to lead music. She came over from Jefferson to be there for his ordination. Adam was here for his actual birthday on October 5^th. Kyre, Adam and Klaire came up to Beaverton for General Conference weekend. That way, Adam was able to go with Dad to the priesthood session. They didn't go out to dinner since we had a big meal to celebrate Adam's birthday that afternoon. He wanted a fruity cake so I experimented with my new clay bowls by making a microwave strawberry cake with 7Up in it for a round cake with whipping cream and strawberries. The very next day that we were in Albany for Adam’s ordination, we traveled back down south to watch Sunhee play volleyball with her school team in Stayton. It is hard to believe that she is in middle school. She has been used to playing with the same group of girls so now that she plays through the school; she is making lots more friends. She is the best player on the team; not prejudice here! She is a natural athlete just like her dad. It is so fun to watch her plus she always acts excited to see us. That makes grandparents SO happy!

In between these family visits, we made a couple of trips to Utah. Southwest must be filling more of their planes as, even though we were leaving on a Thursday, we had to reroute ourselves to get to Salt Lake at the last minute! Adrianne was able to take off work on Friday so that enabled us to get much more done at her place with her there to give us more directions. Even though we planned to help with flood damage, Dad fixed their laundry room space that was at the bottom of our list on our last visit. Their machines are front loaders so the door into the laundry was not functional. With their rearranged laundry room, they will have some great storage space. Storage space is what they need right now since half of their home is unusable from the flood.

We got a lot done in the garage, laundry and pantry room to clean up their food storage, small appliances and other things stored in the basement previously that had a fine film of mud from the flood. We organized spots for them to fit in the upstairs! The coolest change was done when I went to pick up Grandma Bitter for Friday night's dinner at the Severson's. The stairs from the entry hall to the garage were very muddy from the workmen who carried out all the damaged carpet and mud filled debris. That was cleaned up and Blake, Adrianne and Dad covered it with some pieces of scrap carpet that wasn't touched by the flood. It looks beautiful! They have a great garage for which they have made some fun plans like an area for a work bench and some wonderful storage areas when they can get some shelving. Their garage has windows so they may even be able to grow winter vegetables in pots out there! Adrianne's farm girl blood (where did she get that from except being around horses half her life) and clever thinking will make things like a winter garden in her garage if at all possible!

On Saturday of that weekend we were able to go watch Jenna play her last soccer game of the season. She also was proud to show Grandpa how well she rides a bike now. Dad rode around a little with her as he used Rebekah's pink bike. We enjoyed a tail gating party on the lawn by Grandma Bitter's Legacy parking spot to celebrate her 91^st birthday with other family members. That is also where the general authorities park to go to the game so when L Tom Perry and his wife Barbara walked by, they saw Grandma and stopped to talk for awhile since Barbara is from Cokeville, Wyoming and they know each other. On Sunday we went to Adrianne and Blake's ward and then traveled down to Salem for a big birthday bash at Aunt Julie's home. There were tons of Bitters there, even Melissa Bitter. We haven't seen her for a long time.

We made another trip to Utah in November for more flood fixing projects and of all things, to take a knitting class with Adrianne. She wants to make Christmas stockings like our huge knitted ones. I have always wanted to make more of those so I am going to learn with her but my goal is NOT to finish stockings this year of course!

This weekend we also got in a BYU basketball game. We went to one but Grandma Bitter went to both the Friday and Saturday night games!

Dad worked to get the mud out of the Severson's window wells while I traveled to Salt Lake to visit a customer who recently moved just minutes from Heidi! I had to visit SendOutCards to get some things at the company store so Tonya, my friend, went with me and I took her through a tour. I love that place!  We got some sneak peaks and saw some things we weren’t supposed to that will be announced tonight as Black Friday specials. I am just going to tell you now since it won’t really matter being so close to the time:

I am most excited that we will now be able to send a card and fresh wreaths and arrangements with the service!!!  I have been hoping some day that we could send fresh flowers with our cards. I spoke with the gifting department and they have been researching and working with local suppliers to figure out a way to accomplish that without the shipping costs being so prohibitive.  They hopefully have made the right connection; we will find out in the next couple of months how it works out. I am SO thrilled!  Tomorrow, on Black Friday, they are also experimenting with some premium paper like pearl finish type papers. We just keep getting better and better!

Adrianne and I sat in a warm classroom learning to knit and then making gingerbread houses at Heidi’s home while Dad, Bill and Blake traveled to Provo to watch BYU play in a wet snow fall. I mean WET; they got soaked! Well, not Dad. He is forever the prepared Boy Scout! He shared his repellent gear with Bill and Blake maybe a little late after seeing that their jeans were soaked through. The Brady girls were entering a gingerbread house competition so Heidi made the house wall from scratch with a darling mold that she has. We couldn’t help except to add the glue-frosting where Ainsley pointed that she needed it.  It was fun to watch them navigate so MUCH candy from the bowls to the houses without eating it!  They are all so creative; the houses turned out amazing.

We thought that we had landed on the Brady’s Children Sacrament Meeting Presentation weekend but it turned out to be the day they practiced. That was good though; a great excuse to visit Primary and see the girls! Heidi prepared a fun early Thanksgiving meal that afternoon before we flew home. It was SO yummy. I took some of her recipes to use today: the stuffing and cranberry sauce. Yes, for the first time I am not making Abuela’s stuffing! Heidi recipe had craisins and apples in it. I made those recipes and made the pies and yams yesterday so I didn’t have so much work on my birthday today.

We had some great visits with Scott this fall. He is looking very healthy. He is keeping up his running and was thinking about running a marathon in the yard today.  Of course, they have some unhealthy food choices all the time but he trades sweets and starches for fruit and vegetable from others. He has a new calling, group leader, in his branch and enjoys all the materials that Grandma Payne sends to the Chaplain so that he can spread the gospel easier. A new technology has come available to be able to video chat with him for 30 minutes through Telemate; it will cost $20.00. He is going to make another Christmas DVD this year again. He also told us that his Branch president has been working for years to allow Family History Research at the prison as does the Utah and Idaho system. It has been proven that it helps with rehabilitation, of course!  When the new Chaplain came to Salem, they approached her and she told them to set up a training for her that very week. We hope things will move forward now for Oregon to have that opportunity.  Just think what an experience that could be for those men to not only do their own research but to give service to others by helping with indexing!

I have been super busy with SendOutCards and helping new customers create their first holiday card campaigns. I LOVE that, maybe a little too much! J I had another opportunity to be on KUIK Radio on the last day of September to talk  about my business. At the last minute, I was able to go to my SendOutCards meetings in Puerto Rico at the end of October. I had a chance to room with three other people so that helped the cost. I barely made it onto my flight to get there. It was overbooked so thank goodness for the passengers who changed their minds! The resort was fabulous with its own island (which we spent one afternoon enjoying team games). The weather was beautiful but I didn't get, nor want, much pool time as I was enjoying the casual gatherings after each set of meetings to learn from others. I came home with so many ideas. The nice thing about gathering together is learning the different styles of successful leaders. We have a fun contest going to be the one hundredth millionth card sender and the 3 millionth gift sender since it is projected it will be any time now. The winners will get $1000.00!

Have a fabulous holiday weekend. I will be doing a bit of Black Friday shopping with Alina and Adam as my helpers.  But, I will not ruin my Thanksgiving by going to the early openers today.  I will shop at midnight but not on my family holiday; I have my limits. J I haven’t stepped foot in Kmart for years since they, years ago, stayed open on Thanksgiving. I may have to alter my principles now though. If I quit supporting stores that open on Thanksgiving, I won’t have anywhere to shop!

            Just a heads up for this month: Dad and I leave for San Jose del Cabo early Monday morning to relax the first week of December.  Sunhee and Meeja come for their annual Christmas visit and will help us deliver neighbor and friend gifts the second weekend and we are trying to fit in a QUICK trip to see the tree at Rockefeller Square, walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and see a Broadway show in New York right after the girls leave. Nate may even meet us in New York! Then, Christmas will find us celebrating with the boys in Las Vegas but we will leave before New Years Eve so we avoid the crowds traveling home so we can get a seat.

            Lot of love, Mom