Sunday May 25th

Dear Family,

I went to Omaha to visit Kay and go through the Winter Quarters Temple with Caleb for the first time. It was a great 3 1/2 day visit, Lauren came in from North Carolina. Lauren slept at Rachael's and we spent our days with Rachael and her kids. I bought them a combined birthday gift- a climbing dome from Costco. It took 21/2 of us 1 hour and 59 minutes to put it together. The reason for the 1/2 is at the end there were only tools for 2 people to tighten all the bolts.

Having Kay there is a great way to visit the grand-kids. I sleep at Kay's and go to Rachael's in the late morning/ early afternoon. We play and then I leave to go back to Kay's. Rachael's family can have their time together and Rachael doesn't have to feel like her life is on hold for company.

Caleb's mission: Caleb has been practicing his Korean sounds. A dear friend of ours in Orem, that used to be in our ward but was moved out because of a boundry change. Kyoung Suk Lee had us over twice for Korean lessons. She is studying English and is here for 6 more months of her year and a half. She brought her 10 and 12 year old children to have the experience, her husband visits from Korea occasionally.

We brought a recorder and recorded ALL the sounds on a chart that looked like a times table chart only bigger. She made us some wonderful Korean food. I discovered I like kimchee. She had Kimchee in the making, finished up some and sent us home with it. It is hot, but not the Mexican hot where you sweat and need to fill your mouth with something else, it is a refreshing hot taste. She also fed us curry which was not a hot curry. She and Caleb couldn't figure something out with her computer so they called her Korean friend who is from Busan! We had him go through the sounds on the recorder to say the sounds in the Busan accent and a male voice. He smiled the whole time- this is like asking us to say lots of preschool stuff on a tape recorder, funny. Both times we walked out of the apartment Caleb said "that was so cool!"

We went to one of 2 Korean restaurants while in Omaha. We knew it was authentic by it's name "Korean Food Restaurant." It had a real Korean name for the local Koreans to understand but us Americans like the American name. The food was great.

Kay's project (100 unit vacant apartment buildings) is going well, I guess. He hired guys to put on siding and it looks like a miracle happened. They look great. He has had to turn potential renters away. He turned away a white woman. After hearing her music blaring from her car, he refused to rent to her. Picky, Picky, picky. One lady wrote on her application "I am not afraid to call the police" music to Kay's ears. This project is basically empty but used to be one of the worst projects in town and everyone knows it. It may take some time to let people know he means business. Caleb has been working on getting security cameras in place

There are 3 bedrooms in Kay's Omaha apartment. Our nephew Ben Lusk and his missionary companion Ryan each have a room and Kay has the larger room. Kay has a California-king sized bed (he found) in his room taking up most of the space. The question was where to put Caleb. Kay came up with a "horizontal bunk bed" idea. I know, I didn't get it either. Kay put a 1X8 board down the middle of the bed over the bottom sheet. He screwed it in so when I come, Caleb gets kicked out to the living room (which sounds OK but it is a shop area.) When I am not there they share a room and a bed. They have different top sheets and blankets.

Janell auditioned for the school dance company and didn't make the final cut. After tears and calling Brittanny, who didn't make it her Jr. year but did her Sr. year, Janell thinks life will go on. She was invited to participate in the Utah Ambassadors of Music's 2009 European Tour next year playing her flute and auditioned and made it into the highest band at the school. Life is not sooo bad. Love, Janae