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

May 30, 2011

Dear Children,

Happy Memorial Day!

Last week was a great week. We finally started seeing some hopeful signs of spring. Waking up to the sound of birds singing makes the Primary song, “In the Leafy Treetops” go through my mind. Now that is a cheery way to start your morning! Plus, as the calendar flipped over to May and the Blue Lake Triathlon gets closer, I have taken my training outdoors to see if I could move my body into some more minutes of continuous jogging. I haven’t jogged for many years and had resigned myself to be a bit embarrassed to walk the run portion of the triathlon. But a couple weeks ago, as I was hearing some women talk about their half marathons, I was inspired to try and add some jogging to my walk as I looked over a training website called Walk to Run by Jeff Galloway.

I started adding some minutes of running and now am very pleased to be up to 15 minutes! Now that doesn’t sound like much to all you marathoners, but I hadn’t planned to run again so this is big for me. I like the feeling and it is much easier mentally for me to run longer intervals outdoors instead of on the treadmill. It is also easier in this beautiful weather we have enjoyed the last couple of days.

It is remarkable what a little sunshine will do. Amazingly, all of a sudden everyone’s yards have burst with color. It is funny how things look so much more colorful with the glow of the sun. As I was walking and observing all the beautiful colors and smells that are more radiant with the sunshine, it caused me think of how the same goes for our lives when centered on the Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. Just as the flowers are more radiant by the sun’s glow, so are we made more capable by His influence. I love that in the English language, the words son and sun are homonyms, since there are so many layers to both of their meanings being intertwined.

With the better weather I have done a little digging and weeding in the yard. Gardening is so therapeutic. I had purchased some Gerber daisies at the Young Women’s auction several weeks ago and finally got them in the ground. I LOVE Gerber daisies; I should have bought more! After being in Utah two weekends ago and seeing all the gorgeous lilacs in bloom, I was happy to return and see more bloom on our lilac tree in the front yard. I bought that tree many years ago when Katie bought me a book about a lilac bush. We have transplanted it once so it has taken sometime to recover from that shock. Today we had Grandma Maldonado and Katie plus three of her friends over for dinner so Dad cut some of ht e branches for flowers on the dining room table. I always forget to bring fresh flowers into the house; Dad is good to remember that.

Dad spoke in sacrament meeting today on following our church leaders. He read some articles about what could be helpful to the bishop and said he wished someone would have given that talk when he was bishop!

Dad and I have stepped up our training for the triathlon this past week as it is getting so close. We even bought some wet suits this weekend since they were on sale and to rent them was almost as much. We want to practice with them this Saturday also so we would have had to rent them twice. We are committed now! Nate is going to be here that weekend and said he might do it with us; that would be fun! He can do it without all the training. The weather turned cold again so we did some biking inside at 24 Hour and then on Saturday rode out to Al’s and back. Thank goodness I can fit into someone’s old biking shorts as I am going to put those one before I get on the bike again. Speaking of marathons, Scott described his preparations and actual running of marathon mileage around the track. He is determined to stay healthy.

This has been a great few weeks of news for family employment!!! First Shawn got a great job at Bank of America. He interviewed for a particular job in their mortgage servicing and loan modification department and they offered him a position that was higher then the one for which he interviewed, a senior manager. We are so thrilled. We are so impressed that he and Aubrey have stayed so positive with such disappointing news at his last job just after their move. His job is in Concord so they can stay right where they are at. They have been blessed.

Adrianne also just found a full time job and is enjoying it. She will be working for Shelf Reliant in Pleasant Grove. It is the company that I bought my food storage rolling shelves from (actually I bought them from Costco but they are from her company). They also sell high quality freeze dried foods so she is going to get a family price list. Adrianne is the administrate assistant over the home party divisions, which is really growing. Becky Ludlow is a rep for the company so I have gone to a couple of her parties to support her. Now Adrianne and Blake are looking for an apartment close to that area since they both work off the same freeway exit.

Aaron had an interview for which he was very hopeful and he just learned that he got the job also! He will be writing code for a company called Valley Technology. We are so happy that everyone who has been trying to find employment has been successful.

I enjoyed my week in Las Vegas. I was there for Morty’s birthday present since he wanted to be in the Dominican Republic for a week. I sat at The TV Shop while Aaron was in class. Every time I saw legs walking past the store I would secretly hope they wouldn’t walk in since I knew so little about the TVs! I did do some cleaning, made some signs and helped Aaron with some SendOutCards campaigns for the store.

I was there for Aaron’s actual birthday and Nate splurged and bought dinner at a nice steakhouse for us. He invited to Katie to come down also so she got on a plane and came!!! It was quite fun and also delicious. In fact, Katie flew in and then walked from the airport to the boys’ store to meet up with us! I was able to meet up with my high school friend Joy Concannon Burleson this time in Las Vegas. She is a non church member that married an inactive Mormon but her three girls all joined the church which was interesting to talk about.

Nate spent the weekend in Utah for a friend’s college softball game (he knows the coach) but came home before I left since I changed my plans and flew directly to Phoenix for a SendOutCards Manager’s training meeting. Katie flew down to Las Vegas and we left from there since she said she would accompany me. We found a place in Scottsdale to stay. We were there only one night so while I went to my meeting, she went to the Diamondback’s game with Jeremy Luman and his wife. We did some touring around Scottsdale, spent some time warming our skin at the pool and even got two visits in at Sprinkle’s Cupcakes, one of Katie’s favorite places.

My meeting was so good. I really love the kind of people that are the leaders in this business. I had meetings most of this week also; it was very energizing. The VP over marketing was here in Portland this week. We had some great conversations. With the new announcements of the Retail Packages now having no upfront fee, I am really excited.

Dad and I were in Utah for some meetings also two weeks ago. We were able to spend that time at Grandma Bitter’s. I went down a day early so I could help Adrianne organize all her wedding thank you notes so she could get most of that job done before her new job started. She was able to do over half of them in mostly one day! I had forgotten what a big job that is! It was funny; on my way to the airport to go to Salt Lake, I realized that I had forgotten to arrange for my rental car through Southwest. I called Morty and asked if he was in front of a computer. He booked my car for me and then said, “Thank you for calling SouthWest. Is there anything else I can do for you?” Luckily we were able to have Sunday dinner so Dad and I could both see Heidi, Rebekah and Jenna (Bill stayed home with Anisley since she was sick). They really love to visit Grandma Bitter’s home. On the way home from church we also stopped at Natalie Robertson’s and saw her new baby, Dently Bruce. All her babies are so adorable. Jerry and some of his family also came for dinner. I hadn’t seen Chad in quite a while.

We had plans to visit Jack and Judy at their Denver home since they spent a week here at our home about a month ago but Dad’s business has really picked up so we needed to head back to Portland right after our Utah trip (and the standby status of the flights were not looking good). They were already successful in selling their home and they are in San Antonio this weekend looking for a place. Jenni and Rob have been transferred to San Antonio. Jack and Judy are planning another mission for this coming fall. It is fun hearing about their plans and hopefully, someday we can do the same. We need to regroup from the last couple of years of the construction disaster. We see more and more that things will never be the same. None of our builders are in the business anymore. Our goal to retire in 2016 is still hopeful if we can build our card business and stay as busy as possible in the good weather with homeowners with whom we have reconnected this past year.

Another trip I took was to Lake Tahoe last weekend. It was SO much fun. My youngest cousin, Alison, was getting remarried. Carla drove to Antioch and picked Denise and I up so we could all drive to Lake Tahoe together. I hadn’t been there since I was in a senior in high school. Our family used to vacation there a lot. I forgot how beautiful it was. I love Tahoe; I want to go back. We were lucky to get in a World Mark in Zephyr Cove. There was a beautiful camp ground just a short walk away and right next to the lake. We thought it would make a great family reunion spot for next summer possibly. It probably is fairly difficult to get a spot there in the summer???

I know that I am probably forgetting tons. It has been too long since I have written. I do know that Ainsley is now walking most of the time instead of her knee-walk and Alina received third place in her school district’s Spelling Bee.

I love you and have a great Memorial Day. I am beginning my day (after our bike ride) being trained to do Extraction work for Family History. That is a great Memorial Day activity (since it is too cold to garden outside!). Lots of love, Mom

April 25, 2011

Dear Children,

What a wonderful Easter weekend this has been. It started with a sweet phone message from Sunhee thanking us for sending Easter goodies and ended with a solemn but sweet gathering today with friends and family of Michael Bowman, from our old ward. It is amazing but comforting how we can be away from long time friends and it feels like just yesterday that we were seeing them everyday.

How can a funeral be a wonderful part of Easter weekend one would think? Well, after coming out of our first funeral of the weekend on Saturday evening for Risa Whitaker, I realized I had just heard the best Easter sermon of my life. Risa’s service was full of music and excerpts of her journals. She started keeping a journal daily at the age of ten; what an incredible gift to her family to be able to read and relive her life at any reading especially when they are feeling lonely for her. Even though she died at eighteen years of age, it felt like she had lived such a full life since she had learned to live with such pure joy and thankfulness, something for which we all strive. A couple of months ago she bore her testimony. Her mother said that she was given a gift that day to feel well enough to attend church. Her testimony made no indication of the real trials she had endured since her cancer diagnosis last April but emphasized her gratitude for the Savior, how wonderful her life had been and the gifts she had received. One of the speakers quoted Elder Russell M. Nelson from this last general conference, “It is true. We live to die, and we die to live again. From an eternal perspective, the only death that is truly premature is the death of one who is not prepared to meet God.”

Because we will be in Las Vegas next weekend, we celebrated Katie’s birthday early at a downtown restaurant called Mandarin Cove on Thursday, Scott’s real birthday. That is where Katie asked to go for her high school graduation also. They have amazing sesame chicken. Katie did the cosmopolitan thing and got there on the MAX line while we did the irresponsible thing and took two cards into town! No, it was for a good cause. We learned that day that my cousin’s husband (Connie and Clarey Cordeiro) had a heart attack and was in a Portland hospital. They live in Woodburn so have not been able to get to the hospital much to visit. Grandma and I ran down for a short visit before Dad could get home. It was worth it. Then we all met at the restaurant. We had a relaxing and fun time there and katie received all her birthday presents early!

On Friday we were happy to have Heidi come for the weekend so she could be here close to Scott’s birthday. She had several visits where she said lots of tears were shed as they share a common ache for missing loved ones. We also had a surprise “guest” at the home this weekend in that Katie slept overnight Saturday and Sunday so we got to see her more hours. Grandma also came both nights so that, of course, added games to our evenings! It was great fun and very relaxing. It was very nice to eat and then sit at the table not rushing off to anything. We had a quiet but great Easter. See those bunny rolls I made for Easter in Heidi’s photo? Remember those? I used to make those and glaze them with frosting. These are glazed with butter for dinner rolls. Yummy!!! The day started kind of rushed since I had two deliveries of warm cinnamon rolls to get out Easter morning (from the Young Women’s auction) but then the day settled down after church.

I almost forgot to tell you that Dad and I were successful at walking the half marathon in the Run for Risa on Saturday morning. It was all the way around Hagg Lake and then some. It was a beautiful day, one of the few we have seen all season. We had a great walk and a great time (I seem to be saying great a lot!) visiting with each and every water station along the way since we knew most everyone. It was so much fun. Even with all that visiting and all my potty stops, we walked it in a little over four hours we were pleased. Of course the standings say we won our bracket but that is because there was no one else in our age group that walked the half marathon. There were other shorter events and even the marathon also. We also ran into Mikael Luman. He was on a bike ride around the lake with a friend. We stopped and talked fro a while and then were surprised to come home and open the Oregonian to see a huge article about him and his going into schools to warm teenagers about taking drugs.

Another fun thing we did this week is drive down to Albany to see Alina play volleyball. She is on a girls team form Boys and Girls Club and she does very well. This is her first year but she is a gifted athlete. Dad couldn’t get off work early enough to get down there since we had to go during a time of traffic so it was going to take longer. We met Kyre, Adam and Klaire at the game. Grandma Maldonado went with me; that was fun. She hadn’t seen the newest home that Kyre and the children live in. We, of course, took time to play one game of UNO before driving home.

I hope that your week was as nice as ours. I love you! Love, Mom

April 17, 2011

Dear Children,

This is the first weekend since February that we are home and alone. It feels that we have been traveling a lot and had lots of fun visitors. We had a very enjoyable visit with Jack and Judy Hoagland last week. Jeff Hoagland’s home was full since Amy, Amanda and Jeremy also came into town so Jack and Judy stayed with us. It gave us a great chance to catch up on seeing photos and videos form their mission to New Zealand. We had seen many of them on their blog throughout their mission but it is always more enjoyable to hear their own narration.

Hearing their love and enthusiasm for their mission rekindled the hope that someday we could do the same. We had always planned on Dad retiring in 2016 and had saved and invested generously so that we were building up a nice retirement plan of our own. The last three years changed that situation so we plan to start rebuilding again as soon as Dad’s business picks up more and we can do more with our SendOutCards business. We are very hopeful. Our goal is still the 2016 retirement but we know we can’t do it with just the concrete business any longer.

Jack and Judy were on their children’s schedule so they never knew if they would be here or at someone else’s place for meals. I kind of felt like Grandma Bitter, trying to be prepared for everyone that needed a meal at a moment’s notice, which was kind of challenging at times since we eat so differently these days. The Hoaglands are planning on moving to San Antonio, Texas with Jenni and Rob’s family if they can sell their home. They learned of the Allan’s move from Denver the day they signed the papers on their new home there! They would like us to visit their part of Colorado before they leave this summer. We think it would be nice to visit, especially since it is a Southwest airport, but just need to find the time.

Speaking of visits, we had a nice one with Scott today. It was great to wake up to the sun shining. I think we are all very weary of rain, cold and clouds here. As we drove for the morning visit session Scott called on the phone! He doesn’t call much so that worked out perfectly to give him a heads up that we were arriving. It is not unusual to wait 30 to 40 minutes in the waiting room for them to get him there but we both arrived at the same time today. He mentioned the morning sunshine and said that his new cell allows him to look toward Mt. Hood on clear days. I think he said that he can’t actually see Mt. Hood but he knows it is there behind some trees. It is great that he gets some glimpses of the outdoors. He is training for a marathon on Katie’s birthday this month. He said they bring in other runners from outside the prison system since it is a qualifying marathon. I thought it would be cool if some of our family runners could plan that some year but, if you are on an inmate’s visiting list, you cannot join in the marathon.

Heidi is coming for a visit this week. She wanted to be in Oregon close to Scott’s birthday. She will be here over Easter Sunday so, although I hate to see her miss Easter with her family, it will be fun to have her here for Easter dinner. Hopefully, we can get Grandma and Katie here also. I leave that evening for Las Vegas for a week. Morty’s birthday present was a request that I go sit at the TV shop in his place while he goes on his trip to the Dominican Republic that last week in April. It is doubly good since that is also Aaron’s birthday so I will get to be there for that. Flying home standby on Saturday (Katie’s birthday) does not look good so I may need to stay until the following Monday. In which case, Dad may try and fly down to Las Vegas also for that weekend.

Katie came by today after her church. She has been in San Diego this past week for a friend’s wedding, Emma. It sounded wonderful and the weather sounded heavenly!

Morty was in Oakland this week. He and Shawn went to a Portland Trailblazer versus Warrior basketball game. Shawn had bid on great seats at Gregory’s school’s auction. Aubrey was very nice to let Morty go in her place.

Jace Green came home from his mission to Lisbon, Portugal. He looks great. He was only able to stay home a few days since the BYU soccer team was leaving for a tour to Puerto Rico and surrounding countries. Since he was only home for Fast and Testimony Sunday, he bore his testimony. The first place he said that he wanted to go when he came home was the temple. He wanted his whole family in the temple so they did baptisms so Tanner could be involved. He was in Portugal when the Church announced that there would be a temple there. He said everyone was so thrilled. He bore a strong testimony of the temple and the fact that it was a great place to feel God on this earth.

Dad and I had a nice time at the temple last night. It is always great to be able to run into President Child when we go there. He has a lot of love for our family. It was a nice Saturday. Dad and I did our last long training walk for the half marathon walk for Risa Whitaker; it was 8 or 9 miles yesterday. That is this coming up Saturday at Hagg Lake. Lots of you have run or biked that route around the lake. It looks like it may just be good weather next week; yes! After our walk Dad was able to go finish the job he was on this week and then we headed to Lake Oswego for a conference on the family with sessions taught by professionals. There were a couple of marriage classes that looked good but we only attended one since they needed earlier than planned. But, it was nice to be able to see and talk with Pat Aanderud. Her husband died this year unexpectedly. I remember that he was Aaron’s Primary teacher when Joe left and he would take his son and Aaron out occasionally for ice cream. After class we used a dinner coupon at a fun place in Tualatin called Famous Dave’s BBQ. That place was crowded but good!

This week Dad was in charge of Pack Meeting in our back yard. He and his Webelos planned a campfire with marshmallows, obstacle course and hot dog feed. It was very successful even though it poured rain and even hailed during the day. Dad put plastic on the deck and put up one canopy but the rain stopped long enough for the meeting. It started raining as we were cleaning up and the last die hard marshmallow roasters were still around the fire.

Have a great week ahead. We are looking forward to a warm weather forecast. Good luck in all that you are doing this week. I love you, Mom