Sunday, April 17, 2011

Ok so now I am 50.....

Kay got me a crown and a tee shirt that says "it took me 50 years to look this good"

Friday, April 8, 2011

My first missionary experience

I was in the apartment complex laundry room and struck up a conversation with a Bermese woman who introduced herself as Prayma.  She said she had limited English.  I told her I was a Mormon and asked her if she had heard of Mormons and she hadn't but she is  Baptist.  My goal is to tell everyone I am a Mormon.  She said as we were leaving.... Invite me to church sometime.  I told her I would.   it was Conference and our car was full so not this week. 

The next night I woke up and stewed about what I should do first... invite her to church, take her to the sculpture exhibit of the Savior at the trail center, show her the Joseph Smith movie at the trail center, give her a tour of the history of the pioneers at the trail center or have the missionaries over.....   I prayed about it and decided I needed to have the missionaries over so the next day I went over to her house and told her SHE had made me not get my sleep and would she please allow our missionaries to come over and teach her a lesson about families and maybe I can get some sleep.  She thought about it for a few seconds and said "yes" so I called the missionaries right then and there and set up an appointment for Friday at 7. 

They came and she wasn't home, I was devastated, I felt so good about it.  We tried an hour later and she was  home.  I asked if anyone else spoke English in the house that would like to listen and she got her 15 year old daughter, the husband who speaks no English wandered in for the last 15 minutes and shook our hands and thanked us.  We had a simple restoration and Joseph Smith lesson. Prayma shared an experience of when her prayers were answered and told us she had never shopped on Sunday. And gave the closing prayer in her native tounge. We will go to the Sculpture exhibit on Friday and have another lesson there.  she cannot come to church this week but will be there next week she said.  She told me when she asked me to invite her to church in the laundry room, her friend said "I want to go too"  Let me tell you that was SOOOO COOL!  

Friday, April 1, 2011

Happy April fools to the next generation

Kay loves April fools.  Every year our kids say they will be on guard but he gets them……
Telling them they are going to Disneyland…, changing out the cereal in the cereal boxes.  Putting all their blankets in the shower.  Some of his things are just weird and some are plain mean but the kids have learned to laugh and expect something.     
He has been gone for a few April fools days and today asked if I was going to Rachael’s house.  Yes I am taking the kids swimming.  He appeared from the shop with these……apiril fools
since he loves chocolate, these are chocolate candy bars I bought at 90% off after Valentines day.  He took a piece of masonite and cut candy bar shaped pieces and put them in the package to replace the candy bars.   So I have to go and take them to the grandkids.  When they open it they will pull out the piece of masonite with a message from Grandpa Kay.  I made him go and get the real chocolate we will give to their mom.
2 1/2 year old  Aaron loved his new candy bar toy.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Can you believe it? Janell gives away $86,000 brand new Corvette

March10Raffle (221x143)
(Janell is in the far right) Well she didn’t exactly give her Corvette away. We were at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green Kentucky and they were having a drawing for a brand new Corvette.  Since we wouldn't be buying any tickets Kay asked if Janell could draw the winning ticket.  After signing all the proper papers she put her hand in, swished her hand around and pulled out the winning ticket belonging to Mike Quintard of Yuciapa California. They called him on a cell phone and gave him the good news.  While in the museum Janell played on the simulator and we had a good time looking and gawking at all the cool Corvettes. 
We- Kay, Caleb, Janell and I have been in Nashville this week on spring break and have seen tons.  Jessica-Caleb’s fiancĂ© joined us for 3 days.  Friday we go to the Grand Ole Opry  featuring Kenny Rogers and Josh Turner.  Tune in at 7pm central time to http://www.wsmonline.com/home/archives/audio-archives  and you can hear the show we are at.
After going to the country Music Hall of fame, I decided I like country music as long as it isn’t rock country.  My dad listened to a lot of Country. 

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Happenings

Kay and I had the missionaries over this week (our social life). they texted me a few hours before to see if they could bring an extra missionary to dinner. It was the Mission President. so we had them over to our Storage unit/house. I had a hard time finding drinking glasses for everyone. Not one matched. I made soup bowls the day before and vegetable chowder and Kay decided to rotisserie 2 chickens so they were fed pretty well. We went out for “team-ups”. The two district leaders went with the mission President and we went with Elder Savage. We first visited the neighbors who are just coming out more to church and surprise surprise we went to visit one of my ladies I was assigned to visit teach. Shayla has been inactive for quite some time but when she asked “who is it” and heard “missionaries” she got herself together and answered the door. I chatted her up finding she was married to a Muslim who is at Oxford University in Medical school and they have one daughter together and she has two older kids. Humm Shayla is living in North Omaha in an old house with her grandma. go figure.




Thursday his renter from Denver said his furnace went out so Kay authorized a service company to go over who called to say to replace a motor it would be $800. The next morning we were off with a furnace in the truck driving to Denver. We drove 8 hours, picked up some car parts, installed a new furnace (my job was to keep Kay company) in the crawl space under the house with the spiders and dirt/sand floor. I could stand up if I made sure there were no pipes above my head. Kay made me a nice chair on a overturned 5 gallon bucket with a cinderblock on it.



Oh, I was at church and one of the bishopric members asked to speak to me. he tried to talk to me last week but we ran out right after church. last week they had a Relief society calling but they changed it this week to counselor in the Primary. I asked if I could observe this week and they said yes and did I want to do music time in a few minutes so… I did music time, for my first time ever. New things happening all the time.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

new adventure

I am on my new adventure.  Kay and I are living in Omaha Nebraska for a few months in his low income apartments.  I have people living in my home in Utah taking care of things there.  I had my phone number transfered so if you need to call, use my Utah home phone number.

We drove out to Omaha mid January just in time to go to Ethan's baptism.  Ethan is my oldest (8years old) grandson.  My parents, who are serving an LDS mission in the ManhattanTemple had a break so they flew out to Omaha for the occasion.  We put them up in our apartment the first night, showed them some Mormon history sites in the area and went to Ethan's basketball game.  

the baptism was at 4PM at their church.  grandpas gave talks, I lead the music and the other two grandmas said the prayers.  It was nice.

the weather started getting bad as we were leaving the baptism so we decided to stay overnight on Saturday night at Rachael's (30 min away).  the other two grandparents had the bedrooms so Kay and I slept on a mattress in the partially finished basement where the 3 older kids were sleeping.  They were all ready asleep.    We ended up staying on.  Church was canceled but one ward had a late sacrament meeting we attended.

Monday My parents, Rachael's 4 kids and I went to the zoo. Rachael stayed home with the baby.  Omaha has a great Zoo!  Dad and I went and talked to the internship people about Janell and her application. We went out to dinner at Olive Garden with the whole family that evening and Kay and I finally left Rachael's on Tuesday when I took my parents to the airport.  It was fun having them here to see where we live and what Kay is doing here.

Where do I live?  In North Omaha in a 3 bedroom apartment with 2 of the bedrooms being used for storage and 1/3 of the living room being used as an office/storage/tool shed.  it used to be 2/3 but I have been working on that.  We have old tiled flooring which is why I let Kay weld his snow plow blade he keeps on his 4wd truck in the living room.  Sparks flew everywhere and except for catching a towel on fire, It worked.

No live mice this trip.  I guess the 30 blocks of poison and traps I put out in November finally scared them off!

Sunday we had normal church.  the missionaries passed out their dinner schedule.  I signed up for  2 dinner appointments and noticed they were free Wednesday.  I was busy  but my week changed.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were snow emergency days.  It snowed and the wind blew and the schools were closed.  Windchill was -25 so I took the advice of the news and stayed home.  Monday I made a huge batch of cookie dough.   Tuesday I looked at my food supply and decided I have everything to make lasagna except the noodles so I found a recipe using uncooked noodles and used spaghetti.  It made a lot.  Kay said it was OK but didn't want to eat 12 servings so whatahyagonna do?

I called the missionaries.  they still didn't have an appointment and were excited to come soooooo, I made 2 loaves of french bread, got out some shrimp and some vegetables.  It was a success.  3 missionaries polished off the lasagna, loved the shrimp and gobbled up the homemade bread.  I sent home the leftovers with them.   My friend made an easy dessert so I decided to try it.  I used small corelle bowls but you are supposed to use raimken bowls.  Mine worked great.

recipe:
cookie batter to equal 2 cookies (the size of 2 walnuts)
press in the bottom of a small bowl
bake in oven until barely krisped on the edges and soft in the middle, about 10 min @ 350 degrees
remove from oven, let cool 10 min.
when ready to serve, scoop some vanilla ice cream in the center and serve!  yummy

After dinner Kay and I went to an appointment with the missionaries but we were stood up.  We'll try again some other time.  I guess the temperature will be up tomorrow.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

cruise Tahiti #5

We got on the cruise and decided this is the way to see Tahiti.  We had stops at Rangiroa, Huahinie Riatea, Bora Bora for 2 days and back to Moorea.  We snorkled, visited a Perl farm and bought pearls in Ranhiroa, in Huahinie we snorkeled, we took a feed the sharks and sting rays tour with a float snorkle trip and we rented electric bikes for a trip around the island and 2 snorkle stops where the backs of my legs are fried.  I am living on OTC pain killers.  We have loved our friends on this small Princess cruise.  Only 725 passengers.tahiti 3 225 tahiti 3 229 tahiti 3 108 tahiti 3 128 tahiti 3 130 tahiti 3 131 tahiti 3 155 tahiti 3 179 tahiti 3 192 tahiti 3 193 In Bora Bora the locals spent the day following the wake of our shuttle.  Look no hands!