Panama Canal cruise

We are on a Panama Canal Cruise. Six of us.  Me and Kay, Lauren and Janell and Kay’s parents Winnifred and Ben Cope.  After Kay getting Southwest airlines to open the door for me and his mom and Ben in a wheelchair, we didn’t miss our flight.  We did have to kill about 4 hours at LAX.  We left Ben and Winnifred with our luggage and they must have had the cruise people feel sorry for them  as they and gave them some transfers so we got to get to the ship free.

They have great food, good shows, great company.

First stop was unplanned.  There was a medical emergency, appendicitis.  They evacuated a crew member  at Cabo San Lucas and we went onto Puerto Vallerta.  After a visit to Walmart for sea sick meds we took everyone downtown for shopping and Kay, Lauren and Janell ate lunch at a back ally Mexican place. 

Next stop was Huatuclco known for it’s snorkeling.  We just happened to find a nice snorkel and fin set abandoned in our room hidden behind the emergency life jackets. We rented another set on the beach and snorkeled in pairs. The water was great and the snorkeling was great too. 

Chiapas was a little different.  It is a small town that cannot handle the two ships that were in port.  Kay waited in the taxi line for 4 hours.  Everything was backed up for hours.  We really wanted to see the ruins at Izapa since they are the place of the famous Stella (stone) 5. It is significant because it is of the tree of life, Lehi’s dream from the Book of Mormon.  Kay had a copy of it  in his house growing up and we have it now.   Our taxi took us to the ruins but when we asked about the Stella 5 they said it was down the road.  We saw some old friends from NJ, Hal and Kay Gaisford there, from the other ship.  They were told our ship was on red alert and 400 passengers were sick from our ship and not to shake hands with us.  News to us!

We asked their tour guide if we could see stella 5 she said it was too dangerous.  she told our cab driver it was too dangerous.  the grass was too high, over our heads, , there are military guys there hidden and we may get shot.  Kay told our cab driver if he got shot we would pay him extra.  Kay begged our cab driver to take us, the other locals thought it would be fine.  We decided to send one cab back and one cab would go see Stella 5.  We went, our driver asked several people on the way and all of the sudden we were there.  A park.  Our cab driver called the other and we all made it.

For Guatemala I hired a private company to take us to Antigua.  We passed by two active volcanoes on the way, one was smoking.  Antigua was beautiful and a place to buy small souvenirs.

Christmas cards 2009

Janae and Janell volunteer

Janell and I have been volunteering at Thanksgiving Point. I get regular emails asking for help and we volunteer for the fun things. Halloween was Barnyard Boo, a carnival for preschoolers or kids that don't like to be scared and this week we were Santa's helpers. I took pictures of Santa and families and Janell mounted them and delivered them.

Snow in Omaha by Kay

Thursday was the third day in a row school was canceled in Omaha. Tuesday it snowed, Wednesday it snowed some more, the wind blew and the temperature dropped below zero. Thursday was just cold and the city is still digging out. I spent the first two days plowing snow. As soon as I got it all plowed I would have to start over at the beginning. I plowed my lots 3 times on Tuesday then spent all day Wednesday moving it out of the way and plowing walks, roads and parking stalls. Of course that was between driving tenants to work, pushing and pulling stuck cars and teaching my Burma tenants about driving in the snow. Many of them have nice cars but have never driven in snow before. Like most inexperienced snow drivers they don't realize spinning your tires as fast as they can does no good. One tenant was stuck in the middle of the parking lot in his nice Dodge Durango 4x4. When I saw him spinning his tires until the rubber smoked I stopped him and motioned for him to let me help. He didn't speak English. I hopped in, shifted it into four wheel drive and slowly straightened it out. I spent about a half an hour getting the car in the picture started this morning so she could get to school. She had not started it since before the snow started falling. Believe it or not she did not leave the hood up overnight. The wind blew all that snow up onto her engine while it was parked with the hood closed. This afternoon I went into an apartment to finish some work and noted it was very cold. I switched the furnace on and started my work. Out of curiosity I went and got a digital thermometer and placed it on the counter while I worked. The furnace had been running a while so I am not sure how cold it actually was but the thermometer dropped to 46 before it started rising.

Victoria Secret and the spoon

I don't usually shop at Victoria Secret but got an email about their cyber Monday sweater sale. 3 sweaters for $30.00 and a free scarf with 20% off that is 33.00 for the 4 items. I was cooking soup and was so distracted I didn't notice my spoon had fallen and was resting on the coil burner and was on fire. I noticed a small flame coming out from under my pan on my electric stove, the spoon handle had caught fire and wa-la it melted. So this is what Victoria Secret did to my cutco spoon (it's next to a normal cutco spoon). Luckily I will send it in to be repaired.

Thanksgiving at the Day's and California trip

Thanksgiving Day in Valencia California with the Day family

Pics: Kay and my sister Debbilyn
Day. Jeremy and Dave make the stuffing and Ryan is the happy overworked dishwasher.

We got "Southern California passes" from Costco, drove to California, and had an exhausting but fun trip. 2 days at Disneyland, 1 day at Seaworld, San Diego Zoo and Universal Studios. Kay was the lone man and drove the whole time -3 hours! Leah, Kay's little sister and her 3 girls plus Kay Janell and I made up our party of 7.











Amber, Erica,Jana, and Leah Lusk

Janell and the totaled Toyota

Firsts for Janell:
accident,
driving to the library by herself,
airbag popping out,
blacking out for a second,
having to give her license to the police officer,
tell her parents she wrecked the car,
talking to paramedics
telling paramedics she was OK,
talk to a police officer
ride in a police car

Farewell to my Toyota Camry. Janell was driving from the school to the library on a two lane road. The cars were going slow and the car in the right lane stopped (a no no) to let a truck exit a business parking lot, Janell kept going and ran into the truck. Her airbag went off (32 mph) and she totaled my car. I was in Omaha arriving home that evening. She called Kay and said the thought it was her fault. It turns out it wasn't her fault! It was the 70 year old guys that exited in front of her. She had to do it all by herself... talk to the police officer, make a statement, remember what happened. The police officer spoke to Kay on the phone and drove her home. My good friend Gayle came over to check on her and tell her she was normal. Our neighbor Brad came over and gave her a priesthood blessing. I was just saying to Kay that my car is getting kind of old..... maybe it is time for a new one....... Ya think?



Seat belt injury. Head ache, bumps and bruises. She will see a Dr. on Thursday