I forgot to mention Janell and I went to Logan for a week just before she went to Brazil. She went to EFY (Especially for youth camp) Area Program at Utah State University Institute, and I visited with sister-in-laws and Kay's parents. Janell went with 4 cousins and one cousin friend. These girls were all between the ages of 14-18. We stayed at Kay's mom's house in the large family room on 4 blow up air mattresses etc. The camp went from 9AM-9PM Monday-Friday. We had so many girls I drove some of them there. The institute parking was almost a mile away up hill so we figured if Amber and I drove there, parked her car at the parking lot, I could drive them up the hill and they could walk down the hill when it was done and squish in Amber's car to get home.

My sister in laws were there too. It was one big giant slumber party with 3 adults, 6 young women, 3 pre teen girls and grandpa and grandma. Grandpa was the lone man. While they were at camp the rest of us went to two movies, the senior center (a tradition) and a fun park. Ben and Winnifred do a lot of volunteer work at the Senior center and the Tabernacle. One day the non camp goers all went to the center to help put together commodities and one day we had lunch there. At the fun park the little girls roller skated while four moms played a game. Leah and I played Laser tag with the pre teen girls. 3 girls vs. 2 moms. It was quite fun and I got a work out. At home We had our scrap books out to work on a bit. It was nice to be with the family and the teen girls had a great time bonding and hanging out.

We drove Winnifred and Ben a little batty, who wouldn't with all the females invading their basement? They were good sports and we really appreciate them.

Caleb's mission countdown is less than a month. A guy from his school went into the MTC (Mission Training Center) today, last night his stake President called him with a reassignment. Instead of going to Russia, he was assigned to California, Spanish speaking!

I was at sistermissionarymall.com store last week. The store has missionary clothing and modest clothing, I stop in there regularly because my friend owns it and I like it. It was pretty dead there with three clerks and a few patrons. I found what I wanted and stood at the counter to check out. One clerk asked the young woman when she was going into the MTC. She said "July 30". I butted in (I know you are surprised because I am so shy) and said "so is my son" I asked where she was going and she said Korea Pusan so I said "so is my son" small world. Then the clerk said her brother in law is going there in September! Small, small world.

July 1, 2008

Dear Family, Tomorrow is Lauren’s 22^nd Birthday

Janell has been in Brazil all week visiting Ana, her friend from our Antarctica Cruise. Janell’s letter s have gotten shorter and shorter. Her last one was two sentences:

“Today, Ana and I went to the beach again. Then we meet one of Ana's friends and we went to find a turtle that I could buy but at that time there wasn't a band so the stores did not open so went home,”

I did figure out how to chat online with her one day for over an hour but haven’t remembered my password since. Old age.

I guess I will be filled in when she returns late Thursday night.

I took 6 cub scouts to Bridal veil falls where we walked on the paved walking trail picking up garbage. Each boy had a grocery bag and disposable gloves on the way up and their trail mix on the way down. They each had to bring 1 cup of something to add to a bowl to make the shared trail mix. It seems the M&M’s were the highlight and the rest went the way of all disgusting looking mixtures, in their home garbage cans. The highlight was using the 3 GPS’s. They liked sprinting, seeing how fast they were running for 20 seconds. I was very impressed with their sprints of 11 miles per hour. They ended the trip by wading in the shallow pools at the base of the waterfall and we went home. My threat kept the group together. “If I can’t see you, you will have to hold my hand for 5 minutes” brilliant success.

When Caleb was here he put a fender and collapsible baskets on my bike. I had to promise to ride it so I took my maiden voyage today. I dropped off cub scout books to my scouts and dropped a package to UPS. It was fun. I kept thinking of the witch on the “Wizard of OZ” riding her bike and hoping I didn’t look too much like her. Da-dum da dum da da dum. Love, Janae

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

Sunday may 11th

Dear Family,

It's been a long time so here is the update. After Mexico, Kay and I took a plane to Omaha and Janell flew in the following day for her spring break. We played with the grand kids and saw Kay in action at his apartments. Janell stayed with Rachael and I stayed with Kay.

In Janell's English class they are reading the book "Black Like Me" where a white guy makes his skin black and lives in the black world. For a project the class had to explore living in a different world and write a paper about it. One of the suggestions was to attend a religion different than your own. In Omaha we attended Salem Baptist Church right down the street from Kay's low income apartments. This was a mega church with between 5-6 hundred people attending the 8:30 service. We were not the only white people, we counted about 15 others. It was Jeans and Jersey Sunday so most everyone there wore a sport's team jersey and their jeans including the pastors. The kids were the choir and had cheer-leading pom poms. The leader had them chanting and yelling over and over and over. "go Jesus, go Jesus" and "Jesus, Jesus he's our man, if he can't do it nobody can"

The paper was about differences and we came up with .... Loud, yelling, cheering, singing the same line of a song over and over again with the words on a big screen. prayer cards you can fill out so the pastor can pray for whomever, donation envelopes you take up to the front at a place in the program, friend-shipping time when we shook hands with all our neighbors. Standing to pray, standing and holding hands to pray. A public laying on of hands ceremony.

We had a cultural experience. We decided we liked the quiet reverent meetings we are used to.

Caleb goes into the Mission Training Center (MTC) July 30. He will go to Pusan Korea and has been studying Korean on his own. A Korean woman we know has had us over twice for yummy Korean food and Korean lessons. There are lots of sounds. Lots. I am proud of Caleb for his studying. His mission President will be new in July, Kenneth Jennings Jr, father of the Jeopardy Ken Jennings. He was a missionary in Korea, raised his family in Korea and is now going back to serve as Mission President. Caleb is in Omaha working with Kay. I fly in this week to go through the temple with him.

Janell is going to Brazil BY HERSELF for 9 days in June to visit a friend she met on a cruise.

Happy Mothers Day to all the Mothers and the Mothers to be. Rachael doesn't know what she is having, her due date is the end of September. Frances, is due somewhere between Mid September and the end of October. Her actual due date is November 4Th. with her twin girls, she goes into the Dr. every other week.

Love, Janae

Sunday May 4th

Dear Family,

Janell and I have been in Omaha for over a week visiting Kay at his “house” and visiting Rachael. They live about 20 minutes apart. I have been staying downtown with Kay and Janell chose to stay out of the ghetto with Rachael. The word “ghetto” doesn’t apply now since Kay has been rehabilitating the apartments but it has been the problem of the neighborhood for years. It was a place that accepted ANY housing person that couldn’t find suitable housing, thus a ghetto. Kay has been turning people away and won’t rent to just anyone. He may lower the rent but he doesn’t want to lower his standards. Right now just a set of Mormon missionaries are here. He gives them free rent.

Janell and I went to the zoo with Rachael, Ethan, Sean and Jenna. We took the kids on the carousel for their first time. Jenna cried getting onto her animal and then cried when she had to get off. Such a hard life.

We went to the children’s museum and took the boys miniature golfing and we went to chuck-e-cheese. Chuck-e-cheese is a place parents should stay away from. We took the kids last September and they asked if we could go again. So while Rachael and Seth celebrated their 7^th Anniversary at a restaurant, we ate bad pizza and ran around putting tokens into mindless games. The kids LOVED it, including almost 2 year old Jenna who knew when we didn’t put the token for her. We would try to sit her at a game that was moving but the steering wheel didn’t match the game. She knew.

I also went to a home school activity where 6 LDS moms get together twice a month to have a social for themselves and their kids. The moms and kids were surprisingly NORMAL. Janell had fun and the conversation was stimulating.

I have enjoyed my rental car here. I am planning on coming back to Omaha mid May to go through the Temple with Caleb. I looked up Caleb’s mission president’s name and couldn’t find anything about him except he has the same name as Ken Jennings III, Jeopardy player. Caleb got on line and found the Kenjennings web site and found out his mission President is Ken Jennings Jr, his dad from Alpine Utah. He took his family to Korea and Ken J III was raised there. Small world.

Rachael is a great mom, Sister Giles in the ward said “Rachael is one of those super moms; she can do anything, like Cherene”. Kay’s cousin Cherene married her son, Steve. Small world.

Janell is reading “Black like me.” For an English project she needs to do something out of her comfort zone and write a 2 page paper on the experience. One option with the most points is to attend a different church. We decided Omaha would be a nice place to do this. There are some beautiful huge churches here. Just 2 blocks from Kay’s apartment is the Salem Baptist Church. I stopped by one evening to see when they meet and met a group of white people outside the church having a prayer circle, praying for the neighborhood. Later we found them walking through our complex and Kay visited with them. He said he would appreciate their prayers and we said our own prayers joining with theirs praying for the neighborhood.

Back to the church: I saw someone walking towards the church with a choir robe in her arm and stopped her to ask about services. She suggested for non Baptists we should go to the earlier church meeting where the spirit is strong but people are not so vocal and crazy. Sounds good to me. Apparently the choir has been nationally recognized and has several CD’s out. I told the choir member about Janell’s paper and she thought that was really neat. She said she would look for us. She will probably see us as we will be part of the hand full of white people in the audience.

Wednesday April 16th

Dear Family,

This is a time share email, you will not be receiving a free gift for reading this, so buyer beware. I think the ones who will enjoy this most are Derrald and Davin. If anyone else wants to read it, do so at your own risk.

Timeshare presentations have been around since the beginning, I am certain Satan himself developed this marketing ploy. It has manifest itself in the past 25 years and has been perfected with time. Remember Kay’s favorite past times are hunting, fishing and beating the system. Welcome to Kay’s world.

We have 4 timeshares bought 5-22 years ago on the second hand market. He paid $700-1500 each. They have low maintenance fees so they have been good to us. We have our kids use them. We have been to about 10 presentations before our trip. You should NEVER, NEVER buy. If you do want one, talk to Kay to find out how to get one.

The reason people go to timeshare presentations are the free gifts for listening to their 90 minute (who are they kidding- 4 hours) presentations. We have received store credits, ski passes but never have we been so tempted. Puerto Vallarta is a time share Mecca. Construction is everywhere. Because of my restrictions on getting in water, what else was there to do? Timeshares.

Before I go on I should explain how this works. The guy on the street gets anywhere from $350-$1000 to bring in a married couple from the US or Canada who is staying at a 4 or 5 star resort, has 2 major credit cards and makes over $40,000/year. He can split as much as necessary with the couple to convince them to go. The salesman is paid as well and gets a bonus if the couple buys. If there is no sale everyone makes money except the developer who forks out advertising dollars to make the system work. We are told over half the presentations end in sales (poor suckers) and the developer is making huge bucks. A two bedroom unit is making the developer at least a million dollars.

We arrived at our hotel and were offered a free breakfast buffet, city tour, 10% off our bill and $100 Room credit to attend their presentation. We agreed. Meanwhile we took a walk and were offered $200 to see another property so we were able to use that to our benefit and negotiated with our resort for $200 room credit to keep with the competition. We went to our resort’s presentation, had breakfast and listened. Kay tells them they don’t take into consideration the use of his $200,000 (can you believe it??) and timeshare vacations don’t make sense anymore. They have become too expensive and there is no resale value. That took us 4 hours but we did enjoy most of our meals at the hotel on our room credit. The last hour of our trip I had 50 dollars to spend and had a hard time finding something (anything) I wanted at the boutique.

1) We went to Walmart shopping and were offered $300 to go to a presentation, we accepted then went back and re-negotiated #2 from $200 to $250. We went to #2, had their all- you –can- eat- breakfast, stayed the agreed time and when we were checking out ,our check out guy asked if we would go to another one right then for $300 plus lunch. That’s $550 in one morning, we said OK.

2) We took a cab to #3 and listened to their time share, ate lunch on them and didn’t buy. We got a little too comfortable and forgot to negotiate our cab ride home.

3) The next morning our Walmart guy picked us up and we attended our FINAL (I SAID NO MORE) timeshare presentation, ate our free breakfast, listened to their presentation and went back to our hotel. Everyone’s presentation is supposed to be “different” from all the rest. NOT.

Remember this is a sport for Kay, He graduated in Finance at BYU and it doesn’t matter how much money he has, he is game for a game.

Wednesday, after our bull fight we took the bus home and saw our #2 timeshare guy and visited with him, giving him the low down on what timeshare we liked and didn’t like. He asked us if we wanted to go to another one and I said NOOOOOO!!!!! He said this one is $400. Well…… OK.

4) Who can resist another free breakfast and $400? It was my decision. Doing this timeshare would make our trip almost free… Kay doesn’t get to do this sport too often, I may even give him a medal in this sport, he is so good. We were picked up at our hotel at 8AM (a little earlier than others) and driven to a hole in the ground. This timeshare was pre-construction. They had an outdoor reception area where we sat and waited to show them our id and get prequalified etc.

Someone came and filled out a 2 page pre-qualification on us and made us wait. We recognized a family from our city tour and pulled our chairs up to their table and visited with them. I recognized the NJ accent (Nutley). We then were separated (this was before breakfast) and told by a representative of the developer we didn’t make enough money to qualify. They hadn’t asked us how much we made but apparently made a judgment call based on the information he had…we own cheap timeshares, take budget vacations and our appearance... This was the BEL-AIRE… I wear a timex, not rolex and was carrying an Olympic volunteer purse. Kay had a scruffy beard, shorts, tee shirt and a hole in his sock. The developer’s representative sized us up as a couple who couldn’t afford their lifestyle (these were going to be the nicest in the city) and decided to get rid of us and the other 2 couples in holding before he had to pay the agreed $400 or give us our breakfast.

With flashy sunglasses, expensive clothes and a “you’re not good enough for us” attitude he told us how much the average buyer in his development is worth and makes. Kay told him we were over both of those but he didn’t believe us. Kay told them they didn’t have to give us the presentation if they didn’t want to, we would be happy to take our gift and leave. The head of sales who was angry with the developers staff for sending us (and his bounty) away, said the developer wouldn’t give us the gift because we hadn’t stayed the required 90 minutes so we, and our new friends with the NJ accent, decided to wait out the required 90 minutes to collect our gifts. After ten minutes or so the head of sales apologized and said he would give us $100 out of his own pocket and a cab ride home. I agreed, Kay reluctantly agreed. On the way home Kay remembered he had brought his taxes and had his 2006 tax return and bank statement which more than qualified us. I told him “they insulted us.”

Kay and I talked about this and he wanted to bring in his tax return to show them. I wanted to drop it. A few minutes later Kay asked me what that word was again. Insulted. Later he asked again what that word was. INSULTED. He said it several times. We realized he had never really been insulted. People insult him all the time but he thinks of insults as compliments. He thinks being told he doesn’t look like he has money is a complement and not an insult. He likes being cheap.

The following day we picked up our rental car right by the BEL-AIRE. Kay took his bank statement in and asked to see a manager. When the head of sales came over, Kay remembered to use his new word (we practiced just before) and told them he was INSULTED. The head of sales smiled and was happy to see Kay. He took the bank statement back to the developer representative who INSULTED us and came back with the remaining $300 in cash. He thanked Kay because now he could get his pay for bringing in qualified prospects. Win win.

4 ½ sales presentations +$1450 +4 free meals +Tours of the finest resorts in Puerto Vallerta +free city tour+New friends + beating the system + new vocabulary word= priceless Love, Janae and Kay

Monday April 7th

Today is Sunday, We are in Puerta Vallerta on Spring Break partying like a couple of 90 year old's. We say 90 year olds because the older you get the more you talk about your health and we have been talking about our health a lot. An older couple at the airport overheard me saying I was staying at the Grand Mayan and told their shuttle driver we were with them. They watched me walk really slow through the airport and felt sorry for us. Kay and I both had surgery within a week of coming here. We can't get in the pool or hot tub or walk very much. I had to cancel my zipline reservation. We may get out in a Kayak later.

It was General Conference. We bit the bullet and decided we needed to sign up for internet at the internet Cafe . They were suppose to open at 7:15 but nobody showed up for 2 hours. When a manager finally showed I asked about a day rate and was told it was either $8/hour or $40/ week. I decided on a week and he gave me a pass without charging my room. When the lazy employee finally arrived, I wanted to tell him to charge our room but I can't convince Kay it's not a tender mercy.

We don't get a signal in our room so we listened to conference in the Internet Cafe with our headsets on. We were able to sit on a couch and get 3 sessions, and one, for some reason could only come in Sign language or radio. We will listen to it tomorrow for family night.

I had to quickly send my yesterday's letter without reading it or signing it because my battery was going. Sorry about the spelling etc. I was sitting on a statue base on an island between two streets by Walmart (for those of you who have been to Puerto Vallerta- Walmart is THE landmark of the city.) Kay had to carry most of the groceries home and they were heavy, about 60 lbs. Thanks to a Costco green bag he could do that. I carried lots of breads..... yummmmm.

We are expecting Caleb's mission call while we are away. He said he could put it on Utube for us. I guess Debbilyn is at my house enjoying Utah and General Conference with her family and five Young Men from their ward. That's all for now. Love Janae and Kay