Travel and Family

The blessings and burdens of being a Relief Society president Along with my commitment to write regularly on my blog, I’ve also made another goal this year and that’s to visit with at least 52 of the sisters in my ward by the year’s end. Like the blog, it may not be exactly one a week – I hope it’s actually more on most weeks, but that way, with vacations and illnesses, I still want to say at the end of the year, that I’ve visited 52 sisters in their homes this year. I’ve keep a list of the sisters either I’ve visited either alone, with the entire presidency or at least one other member of the presidency. So far this year, among those that we’ve visited are a woman with 3 young special needs children whose husband has been unemployed for at least a year. Another sister, a convert, just recently started coming back to church after several moves and life found her in inactivity. She’s raising a grandchild as her own, has cervical cancer, and works nights as a janitor. Another sister was ...

Ontario Reign Hockey One of the last times I went ice skating, I broke my tailbone (yea, falling again) and couldn't run -- or slouch -- for a year. So, I'm not so free form on the ice any longer. I did try outside ice skating at the Riverside Festival of Lights a couple of years ago and stayed upright the entire session. But watching other people who know how to combine skating, hitting a puck with sticks and, best of all, fighting -- all while on slippery ice -- now that's worth the price of admission! But, one of the nice things about my new job is that we place ads with the Citizen's Bank Arena and with The Reign so our company gets tickets every once in a while for the employees to use. Last week on Wednesday night, after a long day at work, it was a fun mid-week break to kick the old routine and go on up to the arena and watch a fun hockey game with John, Hayley and Ryan. Our seats were on the third row just a bit off the center of the ice. The Reign beat the tea...

April, Sarah and I signed up for the Fontana Half Marathon in June. So, with that, we have to train and train and train. Sarah and Heidi trained and ran the St. George Marathon back in 2003 before either of them began their families. I've run several 5Ks before and 3.2 miles is about the farthest I've ever run up until last week. I found a half marathon training plan on-line which we're making a decent attempt at following. Until Saturday, all the runs on the plan have been within our comfort zones of 4 miles or under. This was the first week we plotted out and ran a route over 5 miles. Heidi, April and I met at Heidi's house out in Perris on Saturday and began our big circle route . Once we reached a certain point, you just have to finish....that's why I like big circles better than "out and back" routes. The five miles took us an hour because I'm still pretty slow at the run and I still need to build in walking breaks now and again -- e...

On Sunday, after dinner, we decided to have an "Unbirthday" Party. Some of the grandkids have been watching and reading Alice in Wonderland and, since we have no birthdays between Carter's in December and William's in March (and we happened to have a large cake left over from Ward Conference), we decided this would be a fun idea. We started by singing "Happy Unbirthday" but it sounded pretty bad. I've never even seen the Disney version of the cartoon so didn't even know how it was supposed to sound -- but, really, that wouldn't have mattered anyway. (If you've heard me sing, you know what I'm talkin' about.) The fun part is that every kid around the table got to blow out candles. (I buy them in bulk at Smart & Final. They come in 500 packs there so you can birthday or unbirthday party all you want!) Asher asked to have his picture taken and then did this pose up all by himself and then smiled when he saw the results. (He must kno...

On Saturday evening, we met Heidi and Ned & their two kids, Ella and Asher as well as April & Wes along with Baby Peyton for an evening at Tom's Farms down off the Temescal Canyon exit of the 15 Freeway. Because its winter, there weren't too many other people there. There were a few Harley riders just leaving when we got there around 6:00. (I understand that this is a popular stopping place for the "Wild Hogs" type of biker....older professional types -- not Hell's Angels!) We started our night by ordering a few pizzas. While they were cooking, we walked on over to the produce stand and picked up some apples, pears, squash, jicama and bananas for the coming days. Me, Ella and John After Shopping, we had our choice of any of the numerous tables out by the fountain and pool where we relaxed and enjoyed some absolutely delicious pizza and great company. Heidi and Asher making a "toast to happiness"! Ella enjoying her orange cream soda. Easy going Pe...

Our poor little garden gnomes have seen better days. They've been taking a beating form the heat, wind and rain for years. So, we brought them in, cleaned them up and started sprucing up their paint. I left the paints out on a Sunday afternoon and when the kids came over, most of them picked up a brush and gave a gnome a new coat of paint with maybe some polka dots, stripes or checks. The gnomes are much happier now in their bright new colors. Come on Spring; we're ready for you now!

We live in an unincorporated area of Western Riverside County. There’s a vote in a few weeks concerning becoming a city. John has been active in that cause (Measure A) and, with that , John is running for City Council. John has had many “Meet the Candidate” events in recent weeks but with the family and Relief Society commitments, I haven’t been able to join him at one yet. This Wednesday was another very sweet Relief Society related event –the wedding of one of our recently activated sisters, Elvira, to her boyfriend, Carlos. Bishop Lauritzen married the couple in the Relief Society room and then we had cake and sherbet and Sprite floats while everyone just lingered in the hall by the kitchen -- my kind of reception! After that fun wedding, I made it over to one of the local high schools, to see John in action, as one of the members of a field of 16 candidates for a total of 5 open seats on the, hopefully, soon to be council. (Measure A needs to pass to gain city hood before a coun...